it filled the house!

"And the priests could not enter into the house of the LORD,

because the glory of the LORD had filled the

LORD's house"  -- (2 Chronicles 7:2)

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After Solomon's prayer of dedication for the completion of the temple, fire came down from heaven and the glory of the LORD  filled the house! The glory was so thick that it prevented the priests from being able to enter in and minister to the people. What was their response?

* They bowed themselves low.

* Their faces were to the ground.

* They worshiped. Oh, how they worshiped!

* The gave the LORD the praise He was so due!

Humbly, they prostrated themselves before the LORD. Bowed their hearts down low and bent their knees to fall before Him in awe of who He was. In pure wonder of His glorious splendor. They couldn't even stand in His presence. They could only fall to their faces and begin to acknowledge His Holiness. His majesty. The pure, overwhelming and astounding essence of the glory of God.

They worshiped the LORD. They praised His name. For He is good and His mercy endures forever. The overwhelming beauty of His Holiness should stun us! It should propel us into worship. Cause us to bend our knees and fall prostrate before His very presence.

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Oh, God, we want to worship you in that way! We ask that you come and enrapture us with your presence. Captivate us with the wonder of who you are and cause us to fall on our faces in pure, unadulterated worship of your majesty and your glory! You are beautiful beyond description! Too marvelous for words! Thank you for allowing us little glimpses every day of the majestic splendor of your beauty and glory. 

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GLIMPSES of GLORY this week

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Mercie and her little cousin Laylah.

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Mikaela and her sweet cousin - she is such a nurturer! 

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Thank you Lord, for my grandbabies love of books! Thank you that I can read to them and that they can hear! Thank you that they can enjoy the wonderful world of learning that  you so lovingly provide! 

Thank you Lord, for blessing me for now, with these. 

sweet nuggets from the Lord

I love the small lessons that God teaches me throughout the week as I study and ponder on His marvelous Word. Sometimes it may be just a scripture that really speaks to my heart at that particular moment or it may be a sweet nugget of truth that I come across in my bible study and reading. 

In Exodus 34:6, the LORD reveals Himself to be compassionate, gracious, loving and faithful. That verse is packed with power as we contemplate what those descriptions of our LORD entail. He is compassion! He is love! He is grace and He is faithfulness! All of those attributes of God are things that we can't be without Him. We can't love without His love. We certainly can't grace others without that amazing grace that He bestows upon us first. We can't have compassion without the awesome compassion of Christ and we can not have faith without the pure, perfect faithfulness of our God. 

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All idolatry and disobedience comes when we begin looking for satisfaction apart from Christ. We will never find rest in the things of this world. We will never find peace in the accumulation of material possessions. Satisfaction doesn't come from any place but from the LORD. We have to learn to be content in Him and only Him. He alone has to fill our every longing and our every need. Only when we come to that place of perfect peace in our Savior, will we ever be able to be used of Him for His Kingdom.

Satan can keep us disengaged from God when we allow him to distract us from the things of the LORD. He is the ultimate deceiver and deception is a trap that will render us ineffective to do the work that God has called us and purposed us to do. We must keep our focus on Him. Our desire has to be to glorify God in all things. Our desire has to be obedience to Christ in all things no matter what the cost.

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The perfect righteousness of God makes our unrighteousness so obvious....

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We need to drink deeply of His precious Word and allow it to saturate and drench us with a fresh infusion of faith. A fresh infusion of His Spirit. And be ready for Him to do a new thing in us and through us!

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"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"

(Romans 10:17)

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When the doctrine of the Love of God is not balanced with an understanding of the Fear of God, there is a problem! We must have a holy fear of who He is and what He does. He is the all-knowing, all-seeing, ever-present, ever-loving, thrice Holy God. The King of kings. The Lord of lords. He is the alpha and the omega. He is the first and the last. He is and He was and He is to come!! Hallelujah my friends! He will NEVER leave us nor forsake us. He will comfort us and grant peace to us. He will lead and guide. He will love and protect. He will cover and restore. He is THE almighty and He is GOD!

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God's grace empowers and enables us to live a life of Holiness and obedience to the untouched and unmatched authority of God.

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Thank you, Lord, for the sweet handfuls of purpose that you dropped in my path this week. Thank you for growing me and thank you for pruning me when needed. I love you and I praise you and bow my heart humbly before you in pure adoration and worship. 

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Handfuls of purpose and grace dropped into my lap this week!

Happy 5th birthday Bryton!!!

famine or feast?

Are we suffering from a famine in our relationship with God? Are we too busy extending sacrifices to Him that cost us nothing instead of crucifying ourselves daily and offering Him our lives? Do we spend more time doing other things than we spend in the Word seeking Him and His presence?

When we begin to seek satisfaction in our lives from anything other than God, we become guilty of idolatry. Anything that takes priority over Christ is an idol and will serve as a distraction to us. The enemy will use these distractions in our lives to keep us disengaged from the things of Christ and will eventually be the cause of deep famine in our spiritual walk. 

When we don't spend time in the scriptures eagerly searching for revelation of His Spirit and desiring a Word from God, we will begin to falter.  The Word of God is precious and a very necessary part of developing and cultivating an intimate relationship with Him. We must make personal bible study a priority in our lives. We must also spend time in prayer. Fervent and sincere prayer. Time on our faces crying out and reaching up. Pouring out and receiving. 

If we have found ourselves in a famine situation, we only need to eat and drink. Devour His Words. Feast on the Bread of Life. Drink deeply of the life giving water that flows from the Throne of Grace. He alone will satisfy those hunger pangs and quench that desperate thirst. He is all we need.

"For the Bread of God is He 

which cometh down from heaven,

and giveth life unto the world"

(John 6:33)

"And Jesus said unto them, I am the

bread of Life; he that cometh to me

shall never hunger; and he that

believeth on me shall never thirst"

(John 6:35)

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Sweet Manna from Heaven:

Laylah Beth - 5 1/2 months

Sawyer 

Bryton

 

Silas

Mercie

Eli

Mikaela

My girl with her little girl.

Mikaela with her little cousin Laylah Beth. 

desperate only for Him

What are we desperate for in our lives?  More money? More power? More prestige? The truth of the matter is that most of us are desperate for things that are temporal and unimportant. We think that all these material things will make us happy. We think that if we finally attain certain success in our careers or personal lives that we will finally be content. But have you ever noticed that the more we get the more we want? That enough is never enough? We always want more. We always desire something better. We will never reach a point of satisfaction in our personal lives if our aspirations are based on material and worldly things. Our contentment in this life has to be solely dependent upon the Lord.

If we are going to be desperate about anything it needs to be about a revival in our hearts. A real,  Holy Ghost revival that will change our lives in a very powerful way. Not a revival in the hearts of our spouses or our friends. Not a revival in the hearts of our children or even our churches. But a revival that begins deep in our own hearts. It has to start in our own selves with an intense thirst of our souls for life giving water.

Are you thirsty? We are possessors of a soul that cries out for something to quench that insatiable thirst of our spirits. Our souls cry out for water. Water that will saturate those dry places of need and desperation in our spirits. Life-giving water that only comes from our Lord. 

Are you hungry? Our souls ever hunger for the bread of life. We need to allow the Nourisher of our Souls to feed us with the precious Word of God. May we devour the scriptures that they might quell those hunger pangs that so often besiege us. 

We will never be all that God has purposed for us to be if we do not spend intimate time with Him. We must be spending time on our faces, bowed down low before Him, crying out for a filling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We need to be desperately seeking to know Him fully. We need to never be satisfied with our walk but to be always striving for more. More of Him. More of His Word. More of His Presence. 

The only thing that will bring us pure and permanent contentment is Jesus. Nothing but Jesus will satisfy our intense thirst and hunger for fulfillment. Nothing. We need to be desperate for Him and only Him.

He is all we need.

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"Jesus answered and said unto her,

Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again;

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give

him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall

give him shall be in him a well of water springing

up into everlasting life"

(John 4:13-14)

grace them Lord

Never before has the meaning of grace been thrust upon my heart in such a powerful way as it was in the last few days. I spent 19 hours in a courtroom as a potential juror in a pretty intense case. Even though my number was never drawn, I had to sit and listen as somewhere around 50 people were questioned about their ability to serve as juror. 

One question was asked over and over about plea bargains and agreements. Questions about whether we would be able to fairly judge a defendant if we knew that a co-defendant who was just as guilty as the defendant in the case, were given a lesser punishment because he helped the prosecution form a better case. Did we think that was fair? Did we think it just that 2 people that committed the same crime or were partners in the crime could be given 2 different levels of sentencing. Even if one person just had knowledge of the crime but didn't actually commit the crime. I heard person after person say that it was in no way fair.That they should all pay the same price. Some were even angry at the prospect of it. I was even agreeing to myself at some point.

As I sat there listening, the Lord just so gently whispered in my ear... 'it isn't about being fair, it's called grace, Beth". And I begin to see His grace in MY life in an entirely new light. I don't deserve any of the grace that my precious Lord bestows upon me. I don't deserve even a drop of the sweet mercy that He so lovingly saturates me with day after day after day. I could never merit any of the lavish grace that is heaped on my head. No matter what I do, no matter what I say, I do NOT earn the grace in my life. It is a precious and free gift that my Savior extended toward me when I accepted Him into my heart to be my Lord, my Master and my Savior. And I am so very thankful for the grace in my life. I am overwhelmed by it and sit here today even more astounded by it than ever before.

I'm very thankful that I didn't have to make any decisions in that case. I certainly didn't want to stand as judge over another life, as I have enough  in my own life that needs some reckoning with the greatest Judge of all. But I am thankful that God used that time to really show me the meaning of grace. And how all of us who are Christians are given that same amazing gift of grace no matter what mess that grace has to cover. 

I am even more determined and purposed than ever to live a life that pleases my Lord. I want to live a life worthy of the calling He has placed on my life. 

I want to grace as I have been graced.

""Grace be with all them that love our Lord

Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen"

(Ephesians 6:24)