olive thinks.

“Reign in all the earth. You alone are God.” This time it’s different. My heart and mind are starting to become one. I’m starting to see God in His glory and great love that I’m starting to forget about the fear I have of man.

Fear of Man vs. Greatness in God.

If I fear man and want to please people, I will never be greatly used by God. Lord, You are helping me overcome. Help me stand my ground. I want to be a warrior for you Jesus. You deserve tough, fearless, passionate soldiers and not wimpy ones. 

Lord, I believe you are calling me to an unknown place. but I pray that as you make it more clear…. that I may not fall into fear but that I will rise and proclaim Your worthiness.

Jesus, you weren’t a people pleaser. I desire to be like you… whenever I feel scared, I want to do things that are ridiculous so I can make myself not in the bondage of fear.

Lord, You can’t love me more when I do well and You can’t love me less when I fall. This is amazing. You love me in the deepest way unconditionally. You can’t love me more than how much you love me now.  You are great. May your Name be professed and lifted high in all the earth!

Thank you for your grace for me .. in coworking with You. I understand you don’t need people for your gospel to be shared. You just desire to give me grace.

Grace to walk with you.

Grace to follow you.

Grace to represent you in the darkness.

Amazinggggg grace.

 CHRIST CAME WITH AN INVITATION AND A WARNING

Jesus stood in the temple and invited everyone to come under his merciful wings of protection. He called out to the blind, the sick, the leprous, the poor, the lost, everyone to come and find healing and forgiveness. But the religious crowd refused his offer. So Christ testified of them, “Ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37).

As I read this, a question arises: Here in the New Testament, would God dispose of an old work the same way he did in the Old? Would he cast off that which rejected his offers of grace, mercy and awakening? Yes, he would. Jesus answered those who rejected him by saying, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). He told them, “This temple is now your house, not mine. I’m leaving it. And I leave what you wasted and deserted.” He then added, “I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (23:39). He was declaring to them, “My glory is no longer in this old work.” Think of it.

Here stood mercy and grace Incarnate, saying, “This old thing isn’t mine anymore.” Then Jesus moved on to Pentecost, to the beginning of a new thing. He was about to raise up a new church, not a replica of the old. And he would make it brand-new from the foundation up. It would be a church of new priests and people, all born again in him.

Let me ask you: Is what you see going on in the church today representative of who Jesus is? Is what we’re seeing truly the church triumphant, the spotless bride of Christ? Does it reveal to a lost world the very nature of God? Is this the best that God’s Spirit can produce in these last days? Have you found a church where Christ is truly present and the Word is faithfully preached? How very thankful you should be. Perhaps you are among the multitudes who can’t find a church that has life. I hear their cry, “I cannot find a church that is meeting my spiritual hunger. Too much entertainment—too much self—too much dryness.”

Take heart—God is soon going to shake things up in unbelievable ways. In that awesome shaking of all things, God will raise up true shepherds who will feed hungering sheep.

You have to humble yourself with the gospel in the danger of spiritual success but you have to affirm yourself with the gospel, out of the danger of adversity.

God is so wise and the gospel gives such a balance to life’s extremities.

It seems that self-pity and pride are on opposite sides, when in actuality they both stem from the same root, pride. Pride is the reason Lucifer, Adam and Eve fell. It is in the nature of mankind to be proud, choosing consciously to rebel against the Lord and His authority and also to make ourselves gods in His place.  In order to be humble, one must understand the darkness and the reality of our hearts and also to rejoice being made aware through the holy spirit for Jesus. When we wallow in our sin and choose not to rise up, it is because 1. we can’t believe what we just did… meaning we have high expectations of ourselves (pride) . We try to make ourselves feel better by punishing ourselves either emotionally, mentally or even physically.  We doubt the power of Jesus’ blood on the cross and feel like we need to add our two cents of performance to feel “good” or even “better”. This is out of ignorance to our true wickedness. We choose not to see the reality of ourselves and our hearts, thus choosing to be deceived because it’s more comfortable to not face the truth. Only by God’s grace, He reveals to us this reality.

To have balance is to be wise. To be wise is to be in tune with the Lord.“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7)  Without wisdom, we become one extreme or the other. With God, He helps us balance between the thin lines of self-pity and pride (which is pretty much the same thing).  

Like an acrobat keeping a steady eye on the tight rope she is walking on, so must we also keep our eyes on the steady hand of God through all our life’s troubles and joy. This will take lots of work and practice, but to fall to one extreme or the other would be the easier way than to persevere and humbly walk with the Lord.

Only the wise will walk with balance for the Lord helps them walk daily. This can only be done through the holy spirit because it is the heart that needs change. There’s a difference between Self-control and Spirit Led. Self-Control still has to do with the earthly self. It’s still Self-ish. Spirit Led is when you die to the earthly self and pursue after heavenly things. Colossians 3.

God, I desire wisdom.  There are so many issues of the heart You are bringing up to the surface.  As you refine gold in the fire, refine me and save me from wanting to live for myself.  I want to be like the woman in Proverbs 31. But more than wisdom, allow me to have You first.

…. Less of Me… Less of the way that leads me to the grave.

Proverbs 24:16

For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.

Failure brings me to the end of myself.

Failure is a good teacher.

I can not let go of THE TRUTH for a truth.

I can not let go of JESUS for the sake of discernment.

I can not let go of JESUS for the sake of evangelism.

I can not let go of JESUS for the sake of church.

I can not let go of Jesus for the sake of traditions.

Whenever I replace THE truth for a truth, in this case, truth becomes a lie.

Without Jesus, everything is meaningless and done in vain.

Jesus, all of Me for all You are.

Help me deny myself so I can have more of You.

A coworker asked me today if I ever had a short period in my life when I was happy as a result of everything going the way it was planned.

“Never. I think throughout my life, there were many deaths, strifes, struggles, and pain that I don’t think I ever had a period of my life when everything went just as I expected it to.  Life is hard and I expect it to be hard.  I know that no matter what I do, I’ll always be disappointed because things change and people don’t stay forever.”

“Do you think you feel that way because you lower your expectations of people and of life?” 

“Possibly. I guess I need a balance. It sounds pretty depressing doesn’t it?”

What I realized through this convo, was that God did not create this world so that I can just pass through it and look forward to eternity. Eternity should be my hope but then I shouldn’t forsake the pleasures and joy that God has placed also in this world especially in relationships with others, nature, animals, leisure, and food. 

I then realized that it was because I wanted to ultimately save myself. I wanted to save myself the trouble, the hurt, and the suffering so I would intentionally choose to not take joy in whatever it is in this temporary life.  I refused to invest any time in anything other than knowing more of God because I thought everything else was a waste of time.  

Realizing that I am still my own security and protection reveals how I still do not trust God with my whole being.  I search for the false sense of security where I choose to detach myself from the world so that world won’t be able to affect me… cut off relationships, habits, thoughts, all for the glory of me…. I try to prepare myself for the worse so that it’ll be easier for me in the future to do whatever God calls me to do. 

“Easier for Me” to suffer if I prepare suffering now.

“Easier for Me” to let go of someone because I never got close to them.

“Easier for Me” to endure when life gets hard because life is hard anyways.

All on the altar of ME and not really for Jesus.

These are some things that the Lord has brought up in my heart.  My heart is like an onion being peeled by the grace of my Savior and Lord Jesus. He is slowly dealing with me by His mercy. Starting tomorrow I want to enjoy life, God… for you and with you.  Save me from being a coward.. not for the sake of saving me but having more of You.

I need more of You Jesus.