Oh golly.

Things are moving, things are shifting. We are coming towards the end of Lent and God is doing a work in so many, there is an outpouring of His Spirit which hitting so many I have been speaking to and I urge you from the depths of my heart to get hungry!!!!

Get hungry! get hungry! there are things that the Lord Himself wants to pour out to you, to download into your spirits, from the throne room of heaven. This is a time of breakthrough and of revelation, He wants to clarify and simplify that which has been so complicated. As we walk into the time of remembering His beautiful son's death and resurrection, may it bring back the simplicity and unity by which we live, we are saved from certain death, we have been shown mercy, we are no longer our own but desire, hunger and are compelled to worship, to thank, to adore the one who held nothig back to gain us. He held nothing back, oh glorious savior, and He wishes to hold nothing back from you today from what He wishes to tell you

Ask Him! this is a season of asking, a season of Ask and He WILL answer you, press into His presence, press into His very heart and hear it beat, feel its rhythm, become consumed once again in the kowledge of God, in the intimacy of His presence, cheek to cheek communion with the one who sits on the throne.

Oh I urge you with everything within me, get hungry, dont settle, get hungry, let Him light the fire, get hungry, get desperate, get needy, throw off all that fetters, throw off complacency and apathy, oh beloved, get hungry.

Although I am in the centre of such awesome celebration at the moment and so consumed with great joy at being where I am, God continues to work in and through me, praise Him. Today He showed me through something oh so tiny that there is another root that He wants to take out completely that I might walk even more free, even more with Him shining through me.

As long as I am relying in any way shape or form on people to satisfy or meet any expectations in me either emotionally, circumstantially or even keeping their word, I will live disappointed. Is that not the life I say I rejected when I became a bondservant? Is that not something that I said instantly gets put to death when one realizes that all life is grace given? Then surely I need greater revelation of grace, greater understanding of who God is and that not only will He never disappoint, but freely I have received, oh how freely therefore must I give! Only the other did I write a blog about the greatest act of worship being laying our crowns, our pride, our whole selves at the feet of Jesus and how I wanted more opportunity to do so in the worship of surrender. Now I understand that forgiveness and the laying down of disappointment are two of the most intense and incredible manifestations of the worship of surrender. To decide to forgive and show grace as He showed us, living waters flowing through us! I lay down disappointment as I stand here on the stormy sea.

I have got out of the boat and there is no way for me to get back in, if I take my eyes of Him for a second in whatever direction, I will drown. The only thing that can be done now is to begin to learn how to walk on the water, begin to learn trust and expectation and faith to a whole new level. It is to remove any and all dependence not only on those in the boat, but even on my physical ability to achieve my goal. When He has you walk this walk, it involves laying down it all. And so I lay it down God, I lay down my disappointment, I lay down my resentment, I lay down my love, I lay down my life, I am sorry for wrong attitudes and heart, I am sorry for considering looking for the boat. I am here, I stand on the waves and I look into your beautiful eyes. Oh Jesus, I know that you will never leave me nor let me down. Oh Jesus, that is enough. Let that always be enough.

Psalm 66

8 Praise our God, O peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard;

9 he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.

10 For you, O God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.

11 You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.

12 You let men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.

13 I will come to your temple with burnt offerings
and fulfill my vows to you-

14 vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke
when I was in trouble.

Today is a day of promises a day of showing how God can take us into the 'mountain of myrhh' and teach us greatness there by teaching us our inability and true humility in the face of persecution and injustice and then He shows us how He can vindicate us, how He can lead us out into good land, how we can know that He is God. We are not overcome, we are not bound we are free and we are under Him and Him alone!!

God thankyou that my Esther year was at BUPA. thankyou that you have broken me there, humbled me, killed me and given me such a deeper prayer life and dependance on you. Oh God bless your name for putting me in that place under those people, bless them for all they have taught me and vindicate me that they would not treat others who do not have you like that, oh God protect those who are still there.

Daddy thankyou for those who are so precious to me there, continue to capture their hearts, may I be salt in their mouths, a lasting taste, oh God may they have seen something of oyu, forgive my humaness and my failure. Oh God I love you!!

I celebrate because I am in the middle of the unknown and my dependance is on you! what a great privelidge! what a immense and incredible priveldige to be loved by you enough to be considered worthy of losing everything, of being put in trial after trial, oh God i say it without a hint of any insincereity on my voice, never have I meant this as much as right now! I trust you so much, in the midst of the hard in the midst of the wonderful in the midst of the unknown....I trust you and I love you!!! nothing can ever take away your love form me and mine from you, OH God you have captured my heart, I am yours!!!!!

Jesus Jesus Jesus thankyou for today, oh I dance and celebrate, I sing of your cross, i cast down my crown, I lay at your feet, i give it all to you, over and over I love worshipping you with everything, nothing else is like it, what more glorious a thing to be doing than spending all of eternity casting my entire self at your feet, take more! Give away more of my things! provide supernaturally so that I might just give it back to you and bless others, oh Jesus teach me how to be more like your sweet self!

Glory glory glory to the lamb who sits on the throne, glory and honor and wisdom and power and thanks for ever and ever and ever. Oh Lord how glorious you are!!!!!

During this job God gave me the chapter Psalm 31, today He gave me psalm 66, oh GOd you have done it! You have vindicated me! you have pulled me through! How glorious you are! I will praise you till I hurt and then praise you some more, take my flesh too!!!! I give you my time, I give it all to you, I want to be like the elders worshipping at your feet, I want to be like Jesus, serving the poor and the desperate, I want to be like you, so gracious and kind and faithful and so consumed with love that defies logic, oh that I would defy logic! hahahahahahaha God without you I am nothing but with you, you shining through me, pouring through me, shake the world!!!!!!!!

Oh, I wish I could just import you into this feeling, i love it! I feel like im worshipping in the very courts of heaven my praise is so consuming!!!

"Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need!
Jesus is all I need!
Jesus is all I need!!!"

Rev 4:9-11

“Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne and say:
"You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being."

"At a distance, I could feel the vibrations of the rolling of the crowns, the casting of the crowns down. They cast them down in awesome agony. They don't throw them down or set them down but with all of their might they cast down their crowns as if to throw all, as if to throw EVERY BIT of themselves before this One so Holy. And I saw that those who are closest to the Lord, in the very court of heaven, spend their time falling down. And they never get weary, they just keep bowing low, falling down and gazing at this One, sitting upon the throne.” - Julie Meyer “Vision”

So they cast their crowns, not just their earthly crowns but their heavenly crowns, they cast everything that they have ever rightly earned, ever been given, ever been blessed with, ever had or will have, their relationships, families, things, places and even their seats and crowns in heaven, ALL that they have, they cast them at the feet of the one who sits on the throne and they hit the deck. The elders understand true worship. They understand what it looks like to worship in spirit and in truth. They understand that it is all yours, that the most beautiful form of worship in heaven or on earth is total self sacrifice. SURRENDER. There is nothing more beautiful than for us, totally consumed with a love for the One who loves us, more than anything else including that which He does for us or gives us, nothing more beautiful than for us to cast the rest at His feet in recognition that we have no right to anything and that WE WORSHIP SIMPLY BECAUSE HE IS WORTHY.

And what do we discover? That as Jesus said, whatever we surrender and walk away from for His sake, we will receive the hundredfold blessing here on earth before we even reach heaven! But God I have just said I wanna give it all to you,…more?! I receive all you give me and now with my hundred and one I cast down again everything at your feet and worship You simply because you are worthy. And what do I discover? For every one of the hundred I laid down there is a hundred fold blessing!!!!

If we do neither stifle the gifts and blessings and favor nor hesitate to cast them all down in extravagant all consuming worship of Him out of passionate love that overcomes all else, we truly discover streams of living water, clean living water, flowing through us. If we will receive and worship, total humility, our eyes fixed upon Him, constantly casting ourselves before His throne every second of everyday as they do in heaven, glorifying and magnifying His holy name, then we will be so full of living water flowing through us that we will overflow, impact those around us, we will be a faucet not a vessel. “Who worships a tap anyway?” (-Duncan Smith) Lets be people who understand that it is not the vine that receives the sap but the fruit! Lets be a people who understand that the poor in spirit, the needy, the outcast, destitute and broken, as well as those who do not even realize they are hungry, will taste and see that God is good when they are around a soul that is totally consumed with His goodness and His love. Oh what a consumption that is! What divine glorious overwhelming love! I understand true worship! I am beginning to understand! God I worship you in spirit and truth! I cast down my crown on earth, in heaven, everything I have is yours, everything I own, everyone I love, every piece of ministry, every miracle, every bit of money, every bit of my flesh, I have no rights! I cast it all at your feet and instead I just praise you in spirit and truth, I give you all that is left – my spirit, and I declare the truth of your word, of your character of your nature. Glory and honor and power to You!!!!

Oh and me and Abi wrote a song which I LOVE :

“I’m casting my crown

And I lay me down before you

Here on my face

Surrendering everything thought of me

Singing glory and honor and power

To you Lord

Singing glory and honor and power

To you Lord

Glory and honor and power

To you…

Simply because

Simply because

You are worthy x 5”

(Copyright C.Hollywell)

Not to mention the random guy I ended up skyping with this morning! I will put excerpts of the convo here cos it blew me away, not to mention the fact that God showed me him through Gods eyes and I loved him so much and I realized that this is what I live for! To see souls saved! People redeemed and restored! nations and people realizing who God is and how real He is and that He is chasing them, pursuing them as a lover pursues his bride. Oh how I love watching that undiluted truth of the radical and incredible nature of His love which we find so unbelievable and far fetched, hitting the hearts of those who are so lonely and desperate. GOD COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awaken whats inside of me
tune my heart to what you are in me
even though you're here,
God come

May the vision of you be the death of me

And even though you've given everything
Jesus come

- Shane and Shane

(This is a combined blog between me and my spiritual twin of revelation that the Lord brought the other morning.)

There is so much more in here, I love it, I love Him, I am so captivated by Him right now, so overcome, oh God would this stuff transform every single breath we take, God it feels like something wants to pour out my mouth in a shout or a song, your Holy Spirit is welling up, show us how to express you, how to express your love.

As Mother Teresa said:

The work we do is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete. I didn’t have to find Jesus. Jesus found me and chose me. A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ. He is the life I want to live. He is the light that I want to radiate. He is the Love with which I want to love. He is the Joy that I want to share. He is the peace that I want to sow. Jesus is everything to me. Without Him, I can do nothing”

Anyways…

“So far we do everything to please the soul and the body. When we are hungry, we stop everything and go eat. When we are thirsty, we immediately go and get something to satisfy. Why aren't we that quick to satisfy the hunger of our spirit? Why don't I think of my spirit first and prefer it to the needs and desires of the flesh?”

“In taking that literally, one would be scared out of their mind of not following every single tiny morsel that fell out of God's mouth. Why is it a difficult thing to do, bring the flesh under submission of the spirit?

1 John 2:12-17 "I am writing to you, my dear children, because your sins have been forgiven because of Jesus. I am writing to you who are mature because you know Christ, the one who is from the beginning. I am writing to you who are young because you have won your battle with Satan. I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you who are mature because you know Christ, the one who is from the beginning. I have written to you who are young because you are strong with God's word living in your hearts, and you have won your battle with Satan. Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and the pride in our possessions. (KJV: The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.) These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. And this world is fading away, along with everything it craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever. “

Reading the above in part almost makes e more terrified than reading the judges passage purely because John is right, we have seen and we know God in a way that they did not, the passage above talks of relationship, talks of intimacy and love wheras before it was about the laws and commands of God. We are so covered, smothered in a grace we cannot understand, mercies which are new every morening which mena we are not nder condemnation or driven by legalism and yet have caued us to take for granted that which we have a treat our greatest love in such a taking for granted hurtful way. OH God oh God. Im sorry.

Galatians 5:16-26 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to another; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

“Why is it that while there is so much grace and kindness being extended to me right now in the area of spending time with God, I am seemingly squandering it away?”

spot on

And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. (NLT: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there

Oh my gosh. oh sweet sweet Jesus, what do we do to the power of the cross when we devoid it of meaning by our compromised actions? You went to your very death for us to make it as nothing by using, abusing and taking for granted the grace and love beyond our understanding that it demonstrated and put into power. Oh JEsus, give us a sober realisatio of this that we might walk differently, you are my love, my beloved, the complete rapture of my heart and yet I treat you like such muck. Jesus I do not sit under self hating condemnation, i sit looking into your eyes on that cross and I cry 'change me', make me new, make me realise, that THIS would be the damascus road I see which changes me forever and pushes me Into the world, disregarding everything else but my adoring love for you to make you known and to live dead to all of this crud. Oh JEsus sweet sweet Jesus.

"Christ's teachings surpasses that of all the saints, and whoever has His spirit will find in His teaching hidden manna. but it happens that many are little affected, even after a frequent hearing of His Gospel. This is because they do not have the spirit of Christ. If you want to understand Christ's works and relish them fully, you must strive to conform your entire life to His." - Thomas A Kempis

And there Is the kick In the chest, the revelation, the midblowing truth, GOd how does that look?! what do you want me to do, to be, to say, how do you want me to live?! Teach me more of your word of your precepts oh God I do not wanna miss your manna because I am not totally conformed to you, oh God, make me more like Jesus, make every word I read of your Word hit me with power and revelation,may there be no complacency and apathy as we read your word, oh God forgive us for the numb areas caused by growing up in the church and your word, God reawaken the wonder and the newness and treausre of the words you speak, what you have done, how you see us, how you ask us to live, WHO YOU ARE

"Do you yet know me?"

Oh a question that has been ringing round and round and round my head for days and weeks now. I don’t, oh God I want to and yet i still don't, if I did know you I would not look like I do. I fi did know you I would be so differetn, i woud look different sound differnet walk differently, heck id even smell different, i know i would God I want to know you, really know you, that I may be transformed into your likeness and see the glory o fGOd resting upon the earth in a way and scale noone has even seen before, God, I want to truly be a laid down lover of yours, everything, take everything.

I would rather experience repentance in my soul than know how to define it." Thomas A Kempis

Amen and amen

"He who has a pure, simple and constant spirit is not distracted by the many thigns he does, because he does all for the honor of God and endeavors to remain inwardly free of all seeking of himself. What greater hindrance or annoyance is there than our heart's uncontrolled passions?

The good devout person first inwardly plans the words that he will outwardly do, and does not allow himself to be drawn by any unworthy inclination, but on the contrary, he accomplishes these works in accordance with the dictates of right reason." Thomas A Kempis

And yet how, without actually becoming a monk up a mountain, do we achieve this? How does this look whilst living in the world and impacting the world? Where is the balance? How do we find this God?

OH what a day. I left that entry halfway through feeling totally convicted and yet with no idea how to walk what I wrote, what I cried out for and then I began to understand. It is slowly slowly but so much of today I have been completely overwhelmed with love. I am not talking sentimentality, I am talking overwhelming love, I am talking loving onpatients, seeing their value, it mattering to me their emotions how they feel what happens to them, a love for people that rises up inside me when injustice comes, a love that means I lay down myself for others, a love that is budding slowly as a flower just like I asked Jesus for. As I lay down my food until it is simply functional in nature, as I lay down my sleep, as I give up all these things and just focus on Him as much as I can and gain greater revelation of grace and no condemnation when I fall plus a holy fear of the Lord that comes from all of the above stuff from this morning…man I hate that I cannot truly articulate what I feel except that it is not a manic high or a manic low as I spend most of my time, it is a deep sustained overwhelming, unable to quench love.

As I was writing that, this chorus came on:

“This is love, real love

This is love real love

This is love

Oh that she would be with me

This is love real love

This is love, true love

The Son of man, the Son of God,

Bleeding on a tree…

…oh the terrifying beauty of the cross

The terrifying wisdom of the cross

only love could ever entice me…"

The other day I was cleaning up a gentleman who I love so incredibly much who has had a stroke and is now unable to speak well or eat and just wept and wept. I loved on him so much until now I walk in and we laugh and laugh, oh thankyou Jesus. I was singing this song to myself as I walked in a found that he had had explosive diarrhea all over the bathroom due the antibiotics we had him on and he just stood there, covered in it, weeping. I stood there, almost retching and Jesus jst stood with me and I loved on this guy, I loved him so much it didn’t matter anymore. I got him comfortable and then went back into his bathroom instead of getting the cleaners cos I knew he was so embarrassed and he trusted me and I cleaned the whole thing by hand whilst humming the riff “This is love, real love”. I am starting to get it.Oh Jesus how beautiful are you, it is only the tiniest bit of what you did and yet it makes so much sense. So beautiful, so terrifying but so beautiful. Oh Jesus.

“I’ve got so much to lose if Im gonna try to prove myself

But you say

I Breathe deep

Cos it brings you pleasure

Il live, il live only cos your alive

I Breathe I breathe cos it brings you pleasure

I live, I live only cos your alive

I will love you, oh through the pain, til only love remains

I am your, oh Jesus I am yours

I will love you, oh through the pain, til only love remains

I am your, oh Jesus I am yours”

- He bled (Corey Russell album)

I am gonna stop trying to prove stuff to you God. My decision this lent is to live by that last line. I am going to love like Mother Teresa taught us to love. To love through the pain til only love remains.

Jesus, I wanna give you more, but what I have is yours. Thankyou for taking the time to make this make sense. Keep revealing yourself, I want to understand love in the context of service, I wanna understand love in the contetxt of seeing people as you see them, I wanna see love in the context of Justice but God, more than anything, I wanna see love in context of the cross, in the context of the bride, in the context that is too big to even comprehend. Put me deep in your heart daddy, I want to love as you love, it is so so beautiful here.

Thankyou

I have got to write it one more time:

As Mother Teresa said:

The work we do is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete. I didn’t have to find Jesus. Jesus found me and chose me. A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ. He is the life I want to live. He is the light that I want to radiate. He is the Love with which I want to love. He is the Joy that I want to share. He is the peace that I want to sow. Jesus is everything to me. Without Him, I can do nothing”

“I will love you through the pain, til only love remains I am your, oh Jesus I am yours”

amen