Catching the train in freezing cold weather and with a chesty cough, probably caught from Mia our youngest, I certainly did not feel like I was manifesting the glory of God to those around me! More like a load of cold germs and a pretty grumpy face huddled in amongst coat, scarf and hat!
Look around at the covering of snow, that’s a picture of God’s goodness dropping on us, covering everything!
So . . lines from a song:
Beauty for ashes
Joy for mourning
Praise for heaviness
I am for glory
I was made for you glory!
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1 To the Chief Musician. On Stringed Instruments. A Psalm. A Song. God be merciful to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us, Selah
Psalm 67:1
What would His face look like? What would our faces look like with His face shining upon us? As we consider His many blessings upon us, the great things He has done, our faces begin to shine, reflecting the goodness of God to those around us – OR – As we consider all the things it appears God has not done then our faces will tell a different story . . . Turn, face your Father, receive His good will toward you and your face will shine!
8 The earth shook; The heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God;
Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel
9 You, O God, sent a plentiful rain,
Whereby You confirmed Your inheritance, when it was weary.
10 Your congregation dwelt in it;
You, O God, provided from Your goodness for the poor.
Psalm 68:8-10
The actual heavens dropped to the earth or dropped rain . . the earth reacted because heaven arrived, as it were. Why? Because God wanted to confirm His inheritance. The people He had rescued, His inheritance, a people that had become His! Yes a people who once were not His people, but now are! That’s you and me, once lost, now belonging to Him, our Father! So when we are weary, when we have given up hope he ‘confirms us’ by dropping rain. By dropping on us heavenly blessings . . a taste of what is coming when we get to heaven, a full measure of what is to come! Now! That is, we ‘dwell in it’. Verse 10, ‘Your congregation dwelt in it’
Each of us has a place that no one else can fit! Living stones ‘fit together’, bonded in love. Born for good works, significant, adopted and put where we are destined to be. We are born for significance! We are made for His glory. We are filled with it, it emanates from us, we are His glory!
8 Let my mouth be filled with Your praise
And with Your glory all the day.
Psalm 71:8
11 May you abound in and be filled with the fruits of righteousness (of right standing with God and right doing) which come through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One), to the honor and praise of God [that His glory may be both manifested and recognized]. Amplified version
Philippians 1:11
God’s glory manifested and recognised, in and through us!
A Prayer
Dear Father
Though we may not always be aware of it, help us to know that as we go about our daily business we are, ‘manifesting’. May we have such a thirst for you and the food and drink you provide, that it would be you that we would be manifesting all day long. So much so that people around us will wonder, what is that? What is it they have got? And when they find out, Lord, we pray they will want you too!
Amen
What a great, wonderful, loving, accepting, bountifully giving, always forgiving, restoring, redeeming, healing Father we have! Woooooohoooooooooooo!!!
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This Great Black Blob
Is there anyone close to your heart that you have prayed for to come to Jesus? It could be a brother or a sister, a son or a daughter, a husband, wife or partner, maybe a friend, work colleague or neighbour? What if Jesus said to you, ‘I’ll set you a challenge, if you can do this one thing, then that person will come to me and be saved’. Would you do it? Suppose it was climbing a mountain or running a marathon or walking fifty miles. Would you do it? I guess most of us would if we were desperate enough to see that person saved. Now suppose the challenge was this: I want you to stand up in church and publically confess that (pick one of the following) a) You have not spoken to person x for years and you make sure to avoid them, because you can’t forgive them, they have hurt/offended you somehow in the past. b) There is someone you judge as lesser than yourself in some way and you make sure to avoid them if at all possible. c) You are angry at someone in the church, you avoid them. d) You are jealous of someone, when you see them, you secretly hope things are going bad for them. One day things do go bad for them and you are secretly glad. e) Someone seems like they need caring for in some way, it looks awkward, you avoid them and you won’t let God put that person on your heart.
What if God clearly said to you, ‘make this public confession and that person on your heart will be saved!’ I know what you are thinking, how can there possibly be a connection between my not speaking to/avoiding a person and my friend/family member/work colleague coming to the Lord – I just don’t believe it! Or I just won’t believe it? There is a connection and a very strong one . . .
While trying to sleep I had a feeling when thinking of our church that something was trying to hide. That ‘something’ was something I needed to fight. I heard the Lord speak to me and He said, ‘you must go at this hard, over and over again, until you defeat it’. I could not get hold of what it was that I was so supposed to go at, fight as it were, though I had a very strong feeling I must do so. I felt a very strong physical sensation at the same time, very hard to explain. I began to get a picture of a black sort of blobby substance that was about five to seven feet in the air and it hovered over us all. I imagined running at it with a knife in my hand trying to pierce it, I ran at it over and over again, imagining that if I pierced it I could make all it’s badness drain and wash away. Finally, exasperated, I asked the Lord what this thing was. He told me it was the feelings of people toward other people. These feelings included jealousy, anger, unforgiveness (for hurts and perceived hurts), bitterness toward people, judgement of people, viewing certain people as lesser and treating them so or avoiding them as unimportant, meanness toward people and lack of real care for others.
This great black blob hung over us all, so much so we had sometimes to give it a shove upwards in order to talk to or see other people.
This great black blob was what was hindering revival in our church. Once this thing began to be substantially dealt with, revival would begin.
Afterward I was reminded of the Welsh revival, a feature of which was the public confession of sins. People who had not spoken for years stood in church to publicly confess their bitterness or anger toward someone. When people heard of these public confessions and reconciliations it brought them into the revival . . so think on! (The Welsh revival saw 100,000 converts in 1904 alone!)
When you think of that person you want saved, think! Do I have a person in church that I am having a wrong attitude toward?
We need to ask ourselves: Is this collective unconfessed sin in our church stopping more people coming to Christ? Even stopping revival?
Bless you, in Jesus name
Andy Harper
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