hard task-master or jealous lover?

http://chrystalf.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/master-or-lover/


So I attended the Onething09 conference in Kansas City, Missouri on December 28-31. God encountered my heart in so many ways that I'm still trying to process it all. However, one teaching in particular has been turning over in my spirit since my return home. On Thursday, Allen Hood (prompted by the Holy Spirit) stood at the end of the morning session to give a brief teaching on Isaiah 6--ten minutes that radically shifted my paradigm of God. What follows is partly what he said and partly what I've discovered from researching what he said....but it's all gone together so I'm not going to try to distinguish between his words and mine.

In the year Uzziah died, Isaiah had a revelation of the Lord. Leviticus 16:2, 12-14 tell us that in that in the days Isaiah lived, the priest could not come into the glory of the Lord without a cloud of incense between himself and the glory, or he would die. This incense had to be of a certain scent/aroma and had to be lit by a coal from the altar outside of the most holy place in order for God to receive it.

When Isaiah received his revelation of the Lord, he was protected even though he was not the high priest because the Lord allowed smoke to fill His temple (Is. 6:4) shielding Isaiah from the glory. When Isaiah lamented his unclean lips in response, the angel went and took a burning coal from the altar and touched Isaiah's lips. Instantly Isaiah became a living censer to stand between the people and the glory and offer the fragrant incense of prayer and faithful prophetic utterance so the glory of the Lord would not totally destroy the people.

Habbakuk tells us that the earth will one day be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. Isaiah 6:3 says the angels cried to each other that the earth is filled with God's glory. At the end of the Millennium, the holy city is going to come down to the earth for God will dwell with men, and the Lamb will be the light for there will no longer be sun, moon or stars. The Father is stirring the hearts of the intercessors worldwide to begin blanketing the earth with the sweet incense of prayer before Him because His glory is coming. The truest sign that we have entered the last days is that there are hundreds and thousands of people in the earth who have taken up the mantle of full-time intercessors restoring the worship movement outlined by the tabernacle of David (which Nehemiah and Hezekiah also restored before revival broke out in their time); God is coming to the earth and He is stirring the hearts of His people to begin making it ready for Him.

I found myself weeping Saturday night over how much I've misjudged God. I want to reread the Old Testament with a new perspective. God cannot change who He is--and Psalms tell us that He is the King of Glory. His perceived "strike them dead" anger in the Old Testament was, in reality, His passionate desire to be with them. How hard that must have been on Him to be so enraptured by a people that He longed to go and dwell in their midst, and yet could not without the impossible standard of the law in place to protect them from the fullness of who He is.

Even now, we cannot move into intimacy with Him without the protective shield of the blood and the fragrant offering of prayer. What a testimony of His kindness that the way is easier for us now than it was then. The standards of Leviticus were not God being a hard task-master. Through the law He was simply saying: "This is what it takes to get into My presence and survive....please do this because I long to be with you and I know that My coming to you on your terms will kill you."

I've also thought about how God said that any man who made incense of the same fragrance of that used before Him for his own pleasure must be cut off from the people (Ex. 30:38). This was not a "strike them dead" kind of sin, but yet was serious enough that the man should be alienated from everyone else.

God has a scent. While the incense that was offered up to Him from the tabernacle was pleasing for Him, He also wanted this scent reminded the people of nothing but Him. If another man made it to burn for his own pleasure, the smell of that would invade the tents around him, too, causing others to associate the aroma with man and not God. The strength of His love said, "I want to evoke desire in you for Me alone with this fragrance. I want the pleasing smell of this incense to remind you of My goodness to you and your children. Don't cheapen it. It's special between us."

I wonder what else in our lives that we've considered to be God's cruelty are actually expressions of His longing for us. Thoughts?

Deliverer

I love the Lord;

He led me out with rejoicing.

He brought me forth with singing.

He delivered me.

He planted me--

An olive tree in His tabernacle,

And my fruit is the oil of joy.

[untitled]

Spirit flame,
burn through my ashes
that i may offer passion.
my worship's on the altar
ready for refining
longing for life.

rain Your word.
water my garden
and i will scale the walls
with fruit to feed the nations,
open to the hungry,
calling for the shamed.

this is my sacrifice--
that which is holy,
that which is perfect and pleasing before You.
this is my offering--
my yearning devotion,
Yours.

Psalm Studies -- Week 8

Week 6 -- Worship and Prophecy -- Psalm 2

just standing

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to say all this the way I want to say it. Sometimes I wish words didn't seem to shrink so much when we try to express what we feel.

I feel it most when I shut my eyes. It's a mix of contentment and tiredness--similar to what I feel at the end of a two hour worship service when I know I've pushed as deep into God as my weak flesh will allow for that time. Also mixed in is a tinge of accomplishment, like I feel when I've finished folding three loads of laundry, cooked dinner, and cleaned my home. And there's a small sense of emptiness, too, like the slow ebbing of adrenaline when a roller coaster slowly rolls back to the platform and part of your body is asking you, "Now what?"

It's a lost sort of found feeling, a latent excitement, a lethargic energy, a directed purpose.

It's my favorite place to be.

This is the feeling I have when I hear most clearly from God. It comes when I've finally pushed through all the external "stuff" and connect with His heart--raw, imperfect....real. He reminds me that I don't have to "do" anything when I come to Him; I can simply rest in His presence, in the throne room of the Almighty, seated with His Son, tucked under His care.

I fail a lot in that I often mentally diminish the power of God working in my life. He often allows painful situations to lag on for what seems like eternity in our lives because He's teaching us perseverance and growing character in our lives. We cannot get so caught up in the process that we forget the purpose. We cannot allow His patience to distort our perception of His strength, His power, His ability to move on behalf of those of us who love Him desperately.

I love this emotional place. I love it when He reminds me that He's still God, He's still in control, and He still has a plan. I walk through my day feeling clean and mended. This is casting our cares. This is the result of observing Sabbath with Him.

Stand before His throne and be confident in who you are to Him. He's God, and He does all things well.

psalm studies -- week 1

Week 1 -- The Joel 2 Mandate -- You Shall Prophesy

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Study Guides, Notes, School Work bible prayer

an experiment

Hello friends,

I'm going to begin teaching a class in a few weeks on prophecy and worship in the psalms, and want to be able to upload my notes for people to download if they so desire. This blog is just an experiment to see if I can figure out how to upload files in blogger. I'm attaching a study I did on the apostolic prayer Paul prayed over the church in Ephesians 1. You can find a list of key apostolic prayers on the IHOP website here.

God bless you all!

Apostolic Prayers -- Ephesians 1

get it all out

have you ever felt like you were "too much"--like you're saul standing at least a foot taller than the crowd around you and trying desperately to hide? i often think we've bought into this concept of what a Christian should be. we package relationship with Jesus in a neat little box and then tell ourselves that we should squelch anything that might threaten to spill over the sides. we tell ourselves that if we're not calm and controlled, we're not operating in the fruit of self-control; and to an extent, this is true.

sometimes i feel like i'm this fractured person. while i love order, quiet, and a good book, i also love dancing in worship and shouting with laughter when i'm with my friends. people have commented on the grace with which i carry myself ever since i was a little girl, and yet i routinely walk into walls and trip over things that aren't there. i like dogs, but don't want one; i appreciate vivid colors, but mostly wear black; and i have essentially no athletic stamina, but exult in the feeling of the wind in my face.

the life of king david blesses me. he was just so very human, so utterly ordinary, so unfettered in his emotions. that last one is my favorite--he was a man given to passion, an emotional roller coaster. often, he would run the full gamut of emotions in a single psalm, going from begging God to rescue him, to reproaching himself for doubting, to speaking forth his confidence in the goodness of God. he carried authority, fought bravely, danced with wild abandon, and cried out in anguish. and God liked him. even beyond loving him (something we often devalue--afterall, doesn't God have to love us?), God liked being with him. He never chastised david for being "too much." david's life was wild, messy and unrestrained, and God liked it that way.

i'm firmly convinced that God likes drama. history shows us that He has a record leaving things until the last minute to prove Himself. just ask the israelites trapped at the red sea. messiness doesn't scare Him.

it scares us.

we walk in and try to suppress emotions--like the priest rebuking hannah when she was mourning before the Lord. "there, there--hush now. everything will be alright."

and yes, it's good to practice self-control. we cannot be a people ruled by our emotions, who come and go on a whim. paul tells us that the race we run is one of endurance and steadiness. if i run away from conflict when my emotions dictate, i never grow. but at the same time, i'm learning that God doesn't try to hush me when i run to Him in pain. i used to think that was cruel. what loving God would watch me shake in grief without trying to stop me? i'm finding that it's the most loving of all. He lets me purge all the poison in the emotional wound before bringing healing, like a loving father rinsing the dirt out of a cut before applying the band-aid. i can cry, scream, laugh, wail, shout, or groan until my soul is satisfied without Him wandering off to find something else to do. no matter the length or the volume, He's there, and He's not intimidated.

as cliched as it sounds, my point is this--take it to Jesus. david gave praises to God because He carries our burdens every day. He didn't fashion us to be pack-horses, weighed down by all the "stuff" that comes along. He's the only one whose shoulders are broad enough to carry that. and He doesn't mind a messy transfer. after all, Jesus tasted the heart of anguish in a blood-soaked, lacerated death by choice.