This is a post it has taken me almost two weeks to get round to writing, maybe because it has taken at least that long to learn the lesson, which continues to be learned even now. What is it that God has been teaching me these past two weeks?

To crowbar seperate the words productivity and fruitfulness. I was recently described as a driven person which I never really saw myself as being but I realised, within the western culture, so many of us are so easily driven, task orientated, goal motivated. We are only content, satisfed, happy if we feel we have 'accomplished' something. Or at least I am. I find I rate my days in terms of productivity, in terms of what I have managed to acheive. Why? It makes me feel like I am doing something, makes me feel like I am not lazy, and then I realised, it makes me feel like I am earning my keep with God.

It has made me 'feel' fruitful.

And yet, what is fruitfulness? is it not a gift? is it not something that naturally is produced form BEING with our God? I know this is all stuff we know, but revelation hits hard when it hits, you know? See the thing is, i have known I cannot earn His love, I have known that He loves me for being me, but I havent lived like it.

In my actions, I have demonstrated a love of works, I have demonstrated how I cannot believe God would love me to the same degree if I sat here and did nothing, day in day out for the rest of my life. How could I? Thats not productive, thats not what He wants from us, how could He love me just the same if I did not acheive anything? True I would be like the servant who buried his talent in the ground and I DO need to do something with the gifts God has given me, but thats just it;

Gifts give rise to the natural fruit of them. They are not bourne from striving, just by being able to put ones plans to one side and being ready for God whenever He says do this or that. This past two weeks I have had every plan I made fall to the wayside and guess what? I have prayed with people, loved on people, been able to invest in people, share Jesus with people. I have been available and fruitful, even though in human eyes I have looked painfully unproductive with all the 'things' i should be getting done at the moment.

All fruitfulness flows from intimacy. Anything else is a 'productivity' acheived from human striving. I am fed up being a canary, I wanna soar far higher without a flap of my wings. I wanna learn how to detect the thermals

and soar to new heights.

And the other truth in all this? A much more fundamental and important truth? The realisation of Gods love. He cant love me any more, I cannot earn His love. If it truly is unconditional and immesurable, then I have gotta stop making it a human love. Guess what? If I never do anything again except commune with Him. He will love me the same. Drop by drop that is hitting home. Slowly but dramatically. He loves me. He really loves me. He will always love me. I cannot earn His love. He loves me anyway. Oh God.

Man oh man. I quote again, fruitfulness flows from intimacy. I just wanna stay in daddys lap always always always. Curl up and live. Everything else will happen when He determines, I am fruitful just by being near Him and reflecting Him, productivity is dead. I no longer us it as my plumbline.

btw....Lets kill the word 'producvtivity'. i am so done with it!



The gold well was reflective...
2 corinthians 3:18"and we who with unveiled faces reflect the Lords glory are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit"

2 corinth 3: 7-11"Now if the ministry that brough death which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, WILL NOT THE MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT BE EVEN MORE GLORIOUS? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much MORE glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. and if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory that lasts!Therefore since we have such a hope, we are very bold."

Hahahahha, I SO am not getting any Portuguese done! I just wanna soak in Jesus and worship more! Argh, gotta get down to some work! Lol. So me and a new Christian who has joined our cell group and is gorjus, went for coffee today and…woah…we bible studied out loud in the middle of Starbucks and it was AWESOME! We met this homeless guy called Tim and said hi and asked him if we could pray and he asked for prayer for his new daughter Amanda J We explored the Passover and read really loud in the coffee shop ;) and God showed us such awesome things like the parallels with the manna in the wilderness and with His son and I got to teach my mate about sacrifice and stuff and THEN we noticed the ‘eat with your cloak tucked in your belt and sandals on your feet’ which was SUPER awesome cos we realized that just as they didn’t know what would happen next and faith levels were probably low in the Passover and they obeyed and if they HADNT HAVE HAD their cloaks tucked in their belts and FEET READIED WITH THEIR SANDALS (cf shoes of the gospel of peace Ephesians 6:15, ready feet with peace) ANYWAYS, they would have MISSED the exodus!!!!! When God says go we gotta be able to go! God used the same language when He told them to only collect one days manna, was he saying the same thing here? Take every day at a time because tomoro you might b getting your manna from elsewhere? The cloud could move in the next minute or month, it doesn’t say its frequency and people would have had to be ready to move WHENEVER it moved and not be left behind, so they would have collected manna in the same manner ‘leaving nothing for the morning’ which led us to the Lords prayer where He says we are to pray for daily bread. Couple this with readying oneself with the armor of God and being led by the spirit and you get? A people who are ready to move whenever the spirit does. A person led by the cloud, the fire, cloak tucked into belt and sandals ready tied onto their feet. Let us therefore just ask God for our daily bread, cast off all that hinders so that we are prepared for tomorrow but only feeding for today, knowing that we know nothing of what is coming, only to be obedient and follow him! Woop!

I don’t know if ANY of that makes sense but I don’t mind! I am just enjoying my new guitar string so I can continue to sing…

Hallelujah, grace like rain pours down on me
Hallelujah, all my sins are washed away, are washed away!

Woooooah. God is so so so so good.

Teehee. More of the honey pot God! Hahahahahahahaha….oh the Joy of His presence!


Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo look what I just found…..1 Kings 7:48…

“the gold altar, the table that held the Bread of His Presence” oh yeah. Oh oh and get this, “ When the priests left the Holy place, a cloud filled the Temple of God. The priests couldn’t carry out their priestly duties because of the cloud – the Glory of God filled the Temple of God!” wooooop! How awesome, He rocked everything, everything has to change when God is in the house!

I will go now ;)

Hehehehehhee in the space of three seconds, what I am going to write here has changed dramatically. Sorrow had flooded my soul, my heart was heavy, my spirit dry. And then I remembered...God PROMISED me something I hadnt even asked Him for. A few months before this period of 'fire' He showed me this:

He showed me a field entirely covered in wells as far as I could see...you know, those brick open ones that normally have a beam over the top and a bucket? except these ones didnt. There were no buckets. And every single well had a name, I could see some of them and they were Joy and peace and love and grace and mercy and provision and faithfulness and kindness and goodness and patience and self control. There were more but I couldnt read them. Anyways, I asked God how to draw water from them and He said that we could draw water from any if we wish as they are the natural fruits of His spirit but that He is an abundant God. It was then that I realised that the wells were full to the brim and I could see the surface tension of the water at their surface. He said (with a glint in his eye) 'ask me' and I did, I asked Him for joy and instantly the tension broke and the water poured over the sides of the well and it flooded me. Again I asked for peace and then love, each time His abundance poured over. He told me that these wells are within us and if we ask He will cause overflow.

I had forgotten! I had navel gazed, I had become introscpective, I had prayed for the overflow but not jumped in with both feet DESPITE emotion! And so I asked once again, I asked for which wells I need today...Joy, peace, grace, mercy and Love. And I drank and I drank and I drank and I drank,

I drank deep

hallelujah!

Nothing has changed, God has not changed, situations are here for my learning but they are also just life. Work is there not as a salvation battle ground, but to teach me in its rawest form how to love, how to stay pure, how to close my mouth, what to do with pearls, trust and a million more things I need to learn here before I smack up against them on the field. How do I learn? Striving, even striving for the overflow??!?? Comparing myself with others? Needing to control and understand the plan?

hahahahahahahahahhahahahhahaha...oh how foolish have I been?!?!!?!? hahahahahahahahaha

the answer to how to do any of these things whilst worshipping and making time for my gorious beloved?

Drink Deep.

Isaiah 35
Joy of the Redeemed
1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus,
2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you."
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away

I am one for whom it takes incredibly long for the incredibly obvious to sink in, for it really to take root and transfer from being head knowledge to being heart and lifestyle action. Maybe its because I have spent that much longer doing the ’theoretical Christian’ thing, maybe its because I have grown weary and discouraged from chasing after that which seems to happen to other people. So quickly does my human mind forget that which has shaped my very life, that has taken me from almost guaranteed suicide and placed my feet upon a rock and my self in this place of such provision and blessing and security in who I am. I suppose part of today however is a realization that my security isn’t as secure as I once thought it was. I sit under the fire and reprimand of the Lord, of myself as well if Im honest, and I feel seven again. The age when you truly believe you understand everything and when little girls become pretentious if they are that way inclined as they cannot see that they are still only children and in fact they need discipline, they need guidance and they sometimes just need to recognize their immaturity. Just like throughout growing up it is a painful lesson to learn, recognizing immaturity in the spirit, especially that immaturity which has birthed pride and a dependence of other peoples views and opinions of oneself, is so so painful. And yet, I prayed the prayer, I wanted to die, I gave Him myself, I asked to be ruined, wrecked, broken and taken…this is the answer.

There has been such a mindset I never even noticed still existed within me that has had its derivation from old insecurities, past friendships, past hurts and comments mad by those to whom I should not have tossed pearls. What am I talking about? I am talking about caring what other people think of me, I am talking about being jealous (not just hungering) but jealous that Gods grace seems more abundant over some than others. I am talking about realizing how very young and very incapable I am. And yet I KNOW all of the above is under the blood, I KNOW that this isn’t the root, I KNOW this is covering something much, much deeper that if I recognize it, satan will no longer have a hold and this stuff that he is using to mask it will simply disappear. The root?... *praying*

I cant do it.

Revelation, as I said, takes so very very very long to come to me and really take root, especially revelation like this because of its pain levels. I have always been aware that nothing I say or do can change the impossible, that only God can, that I am not in control etc etc etc but I look at myself and my attitudes and I know that God is calling me to repent of it all, in the true meaning of the word…to have a transformation of mind and view. I know that I am incapable of healing by simply laying on hands unless the spirit of God comes…and yet I am a nurse so I can at least in my own strength rely on the medical profession. I know that I cannot heal a broken heart or provide restoration to those who have been broken….but I am good at empathizing, making gifts and patching stuff up. I know that I cannot provide incredible finance…but I can write letters, mention stuff to people I know can help and ‘build connections’ so I have a plan B. I know that if I were to pray the radical ‘taboo’ prayers on the streets of the city, I may not see an answer, so I watch myself praying out of my own ability, praying for comfort, relief of pain or symptoms, joy or them to know they are not alone. I pray all those things that I know if God doesn’t show up, I can step into the gap.

Do I pray the impossible? Yes. Have I seen the impossible happen? Yes. Do I have the faith for the impossible? Yes to that too even.

So what am I saying?

I suppose I am merely realizing the very depths of my control issue. The thing is, if I really really really really believe it. If God is who HE says He is. If I am wanting to live on the winds of the spirit. If I want to live in such a way that if he were ever to leave I would be dead, if I wanna live such that, just like the Israelites LITERALY relied on Gods direction and provision or they would physically die…if THIS IS MY PRAYER.

Then I wont ever be able to do it. Only God will be able to. So I gotta stop trying

There is no room for plan B anymore. I repent of my mindset that has created so many plans, so many roots out. I repent of everything I have held onto, the places I am going, the ministry I wanna be in, especially even the things I want people to think of me or the ‘acheivements’ I wanna make. I repent of it all because I recognize in my utter brokenness, in pain beyond pain. That only You Lord. Only You. Only You Lord can do it, can do anything, can send the thermals I can rise up into, can heal the paraplegic as I lay my hand upon them. The ability to speak your love into the unloveable. To go wherever you say and not question how when or where. Only You Lord are able to do anything through this mere jar of clay. I can do nothing.

I see now, I realize, this is where my insecurity lay. Something has shifted in the spiritual today. Something so much deeper than the ‘experiential’ I was still seeking despite the very sermon I preached! Something in my focus, my vision, my understanding, my dying. I boast only in the Lord. Alone, I can do nothing. But I declare and declare and declare that with Him dwelling in me (oh Lord teach me how the be a permanent dwelling place!) with Him dwelling within me, with Him pouring through me, with Him speaking and giving me the very words to say….I can do all things. I will do all things. And yet…

….even if….

(Oh Lord NOW I understand why these guys have come up ALL WEEK! Lol AND why you had me re listen to my own talk! Lol)

“if we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand Oh King. But even if He does not, we want you to know Oh king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Dan 3:17-18)

If ever there was a scripture I need to live in for a while…there it is. Praise Be to God in heaven forever and ever and ever. Praise Him for His faithfulness, his patience, His loving kindness, His revelation, His presence, His spirit, His provision. Praise be to God every single day of my life, my lips will praise Him. I will live only for Him, I will only listen to what He says about me, I will only walk where He says I should go..

“unless your presence goes before me, I will not go” (Ex 33)

Lord,

I am yours.

Amen x

I am utterly dumbstruck this morning by the correlation between the heart for unity and what a unified church experiencing revival looks like by the model proposed and demonstrated in 2 Chronicles 5:4-end:

4 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, 5 and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests, who were Levites, carried them up; 6 and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.
7 The priests then brought the ark of the LORD's covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. 8 The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. 9 These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. 10 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.
11 The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. 12 All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. 13 The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: "He is good; his love endures forever." Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud, 14 and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.


"despite their divisions", worshippers unified, scrifices too numerous to count were madem glory of God was present, cherubim move - miraculous. Unity - when people move on despite divisions becasue they have a common, greater calling - ushering in the miraculous glory of God into their city - causes God to dwell, causes mass sacrifice on the streets, causes the miraculous, causes the fulfilment of promise.

Wow.

“But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Job 23:10

In order to refine gold, a goldsmith places gold over a fire until it bubbles and glows. He skims off the impurity from the top and knows that when he can see his reflection, the gold is pure. That is what the Lord is doing when you go through trials. When He can see His likeness reproduced in your life, He’ll know that you have become gold fit for His use and for His glory. But, the fire is hot! Yes, but God controls it. No jeweler is more careful with his gold than a father with his children. He knows what He is doing. But, what about those things He is burning out of my life? You don’t need them. If you needed them, your loving Father would make sure you kept them.

So there are so many scriptures rushing round my head that have really come to the surface today so, as I sit here in dungarees listening to my new Daniel Bedingfield album and relax with Jesus in the middle of two mad work days, I reflect finally on the things that the Lord is slowly and gently revealing to me.

Firstly, was the passage of scripture in 1 Chronicles 20:20ish where the battle was fought with the worhsippers and praisers frontline. Picture the scene for a second, this isn’t some sort of nice Christian analogy, this is a real scenario in history! Can you imagine?! Tambourines in the front row?!?! There is true faith in that, true assurance and the obvious but critical lesson to learn. However insane it appears to everyone else including ourself and how it feels, we must go into everything with praise on our lips, worship in our hearts. The bizarrer and harder and more challenging the situation, we have GOT to go it with God, praising Him because He is always always worth it, worshipping Him because He never changes even though nothing else stays the same, worshipping Him because He is worthy and for no other reason, whether or not we feel any different by dong so.

We have got to stop being in the business of worshipping God for self edification, I really feel this conviction strongly. It is not about us. We do not fight the battles for ourselves, but there is a bigger picture, He loves us and has done the greatest thing He ever could, He deserves the eternal recognition and passionate worship purely for that and that alone! Why do we go to church? What are our comments when we leave? What are we singing? Why are we there? He will meet us there, He will come and touch us if we ask and bring us into His heart, but it cant be the introspective egocentric reason for being there, it has got to be because we love Him, we have got to be there for Him.

And then I was shown as we were prayer walking and asking for strategies as to how to combat the intense spiritual idols that are predominant in the area of our cell group., hindus, islam, Sikhs, prostitution, drugs, crime, and more! And the Lord reminded me that there are two sections of the verse that states ‘whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven’. You see, so much of the time we concentrate our efforts on discerning the demons, casting out, bringing down, battling and praying against. But the thing is, our strategy in how we speak, in what we do, in how we pray, needs to be to be loosing Gods power, loosing angels, loosing His word and His truth and…His LOVE. Love casts out all fear, Gods light shines on everything and the darkness HAS to flee! God already has the victory over everything! If we pray Him into situations, if we declare His truth and, most importantly, if we keep loving, keep loving, keep loving, the darkness can do nothing but flee. We can keep our eyes focused on Him and Him alone and don’t have to give the devil any of our time! Hahaha. Combat evil with Good, we need to start getting in the habit of loosing.

What else? Man its been so long since I blogged this should probably be released as about five different blogs! Sorry!

Hehe, oooooooooooooooooo yeah, there was something very very very kewl I came across this morning which probably wont be at all significant to anyone but I was quite intrigued when I read it! When it talks about Jesus’ baptism, it describes that God ‘tore open’ heaven above Him and descended on Him as a dove, I don’t fully know the significance of this although I think I may take sometime soon to do a word search on tearing or rending because there is something so much more passionate about it, I don’t know, its just such a beautiful picture, that God would tear open heaven to speak over His son. Any more thoughts about this, I would love to hear them!

And last but not least, there is the whole preparation thing. The fact that in Ephesians 6:15 it talks about putting on the shoes of the gospel of peace as one of the FIRST bits of the armor of God cos it’s the PREPARATION bit. Its about readying yourself, the shield and the sword and everything else comes later on. Again, in Chronicles, one of the kings is said to have ‘become mighty BECAUSE He prepared himself before the Lord’ once again, I could exposit this and really pull it apart but I wont except to say, I love it and it helps me to continue living it! Hehehehe

Well I suppose that should be all for now! Sorry for filling up your entire page! Hahaha. Oh and in terms of news, more weddings on the horizon but not any from my court praise Jesus! I love being single J work is really hard work but He is teaching me of His faithfulness and showing me the flaws that He wants to remove from me by placing me in His refining fire and stress and work is bringing those out. Its horrid to see your flaws but its awesome to know that once you’ve seen them, God has brought them up and is gonna burn them off you, I am being tested in the fire and am gonna come forth as gold yet!

Praise God always. Gloria a sua nome Jesus!