A vision of Love!

I am overwhelmed by my study this morning. If you ever question God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth and his motives in all the cosmos, he reveals his nature all throughout Scripture. But today my reading was so clear, so obvious, so true: 

Via Pinterest

Moses asks to see God's "glorious presence" in Exodus 33:18. But what does God show Moses? He says: "I will make my goodness pass before you (33:19)" God is so powerful that he did not show his face to Moses because it would have killed him. But God shows Moses even better than a tangible vision of himself. He shows what humans can relate to; not his mighty power, but his LOVE! His love revealed by his character and nature. Basically his ultimate being!


Reading further, God speaks his being of love to Moses on Mt. Sinai
Exodus 34: 5-7 NLT
5) Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh. 6) The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,


   “Yahweh! The Lord!
      The God of compassion and mercy!
   I am slow to anger
      and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
 7) I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.
      I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.
   But I do not excuse the guilty.
      I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren;
   the entire family is affected—
      even children in the third and fourth generations.”


Our God is a loving Father. He does not let our sin go unpunished... but he forgives and forgets. God's glory that Moses asks to see is revealed in his mercy, grace, compassion, faithfulness, forgiveness, and justice. How can we deny a God that has the best intentions for his people?! 


How did Moses respond? "Moses immediately threw himself to the ground and worshiped (34:8)."

One Thousand Gifts

I've seen a lot of posts in the blog world about this book One Thousand Gifts and now I am antsy in my pantsies to get a copy of it. It clearly looks like one of those books you can always come back to and read through and through. Hopefully soon I'll have my own to scribble in and underline. 

On another note. Both my husband and I can play very little guitar. I was raised in a very musical family and learned to play piano very young and violin when I was 10. I'm at the point that I feel rusty at everything I once was good at. But John Mark is determined to pick up his guitar again, as am I. I think we both have dreams of leading worship and singing on our back porch together and right now we are motivated. We are at the stage of trying to regain our callused finger tips so we can play without being in pain. I love seeing my husband play the guitar. He took lessons for a short time when he was a kid, but it has been a while. Today I told him: "well, think of this... a major chord sounds happy and a minor chord sounds sad." His response: "I think that Johnny Cash played a lot of minor chords."
I always dreamed of singing and playing music with my husband, and when I married John Mark, I knew that it may not be a possibility. He sings all the time, but doesn't have much rhythm. But  i'm all googly-eyed these pass few days watching him practice. I've never taken guitar lessons, just taught myself a few things on my Takamine Jasmine guitar and now we are practicing together. He really wants to learn the Banjo and I want to  pick up my mom's Mandolin. Maybe one day my dreams will come true and we can have a family band on our back porch with a scenic mountain view in the background. When I was young, I was a little embarrassed of the capabilities of our Wilson family band... oh how the tables turn. I'm wishing our little Redwine family into a mountain band already.

Forgotten God Chapter 2

Chapter 2: What are you afraid of?

“Focus on believing the promises given to us by God, on submitting to Him the fears that we have, and on surrendering ourselves fully to the work and will of God, the Holy Spirit.”

This chapter hits hard to my heart and my cry spiritually. In being completely vulnerable, I want to elaborate a little more on my current struggle with my faith. It has been nearly a year now that I have been on a seemingly flat line in my spiritual walk with God. I haven’t fallen away from God; I just feel like I have just fallen into a state of neither highs nor lows and therefore have found little growth as a Christian.

In thinking back, I realize the problem is my failure to make an effort to grow more; not because I don’t want to, rather a sense of idleness and inconsistency in my relationship with him. I have not challenged myself to search God at a level that is challenging me spiritually. I definitely am challenged scholarly on a daily basis, and emotionally, but I recognize I have for some reason been reluctant to go further in my personal walk with God. As I am writing this, I can see that there are so many things that are surely happening to me that I am failing to recognize as an opportunity for spiritual growth.

A few questions that Chan asks to consider: What if I pray for the Holy Spirit and nothing happens? What fears do I have about the Holy Spirit?

I feel as though these two questions are in direct relation to my current spiritual struggle. I am at a point where I feel so extremely distant from God that I do not even know how to pray anymore. I pray for the Lord’s direction and I feel as though I am failing to see or hear it. What fears do I have about the Holy Spirit? I think that currently my fear has been insignificance. I feel as though my failure to be consistent with God has caused me to be distant from hearing his word. But Chan makes a completely eye-opening statement: imagine how much it pains God to see his children hold back from relationship with the Holy Spirit out of fear that He won’t come through. Am I holding back in fear that he won’t come through? I don’t feel that that’s the reason I may be “holding back,” but, I do recognize I am holding back in fear that I am not able to hear his word. I can only imagine how much I am hurting God.

I just really want to grow and learn to be so tuned in God that I can learn to trust him in doing something I don’t want to do. That’s a really hard statement. I want to grow deeper in my relationship with God and at this point I believe that it will happen if I seek the word and study about the Holy Spirit. I feel that I really have not sought out an answer and understanding on a personal degree; just me and God, and I am ready to do that. Ready to set my presuppositions aside.

Another question Chan asks: Do you have enough humility to be open to the possibility that you have been wrong in your understanding of the Spirit? Don’t let your views be determined by a particular denomination or by what you’ve always been told.

Therefore, it’s time for me to seek out what God said about His Spirit. God desires to empower us through the Holy Spirit. It’s time for me to pray confidently for what God has promised. I understand that this may be a difficult, painful process that strips me of selfishness, pride, and fear; this was never meant to be easy. I believe it will be rewarding to my relationship with God.

As Chan says: Release the grip of control on my life and decide to be led. –Yikes!!!

Forgotten God Chapter 1

Sometimes it takes a lot of reiteration for us to grasp something we’ve heard for years and something that seems as though it has been obvious for so long. But Francis Chan really hits the nail on the head in this first chapter of Forgotten God when he challenges his readers to focus on the significance of the Holy Spirit. He explains that Jesus explained to his disciples that he would send a Counselor, just like Christ (as in, the same essence, same being, same capacity) to come. In John 16:7 Jesus explains that “it is for your good that I am going away” because that way the Counselor (Holy Spirit) would be sent.

So often I find myself wishing I lived in the times of Christ so that I can experience first hand the presence and teachings of Jesus, but I have failed to acknowledge that same powerful and merciful work that is available in the Holy Spirit; the being I believe to be alive and at work in me. So often I have failed to expect and appreciate the Holy Spirit, and for that, I have missed out on the most precious part of following Christ, that bond of Spirit to Spirit. Christ claimed that it was better that the Counselor come. Boy, how I have failed to accept that. It is not that the God is not working through his Spirit in me; it is that I have ignored to recognize his presence in me. I have failed to listen, failed to trust, and failed to acknowledge significant promptings. I have been struggling for quite some time now with a spiritual distance from God and all so purely, it is obvious I am at fault.

When Christ is speaking to his disciples in Mark 4:24 he states: “Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given” … “But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” This is when they were questioning the meaning of the parable of the four soils. When I read this, I feel like so often I am not listening. I am talking, I am frustrated, I am crying to God that I may be close to him, but really… Am I listening? Am I recognizing his work?

This is a problem with the church today. Are these churches really encouraging their believers to listen to the Spirit and be at one with the Spirit, or are we worried about a gathering place that is appealing and bringing in people? Are people leaving the doors being challenged by the Spirit and challenged to communicate daily and in-the-moment with the Counselor? It is so easy to get caught up in the “prettiness” of the presence of the church, but our priority should be getting caught up in the presence of the Spirit.

The Spirit is dwelling within those that believe, but can you tell? Are believers really any different from society? Rather than being so consumed and ignited by the Spirit whom is dwelling in us, so often we chose to allow ourselves to be swallowed up in the path of acceptance from society or the complete opposite… we judge and expect society to be just like our often, unfortunate hypocritical selves.

That puts the church (those that believe, Not a building) at a very difficult position. But like Chan is convicted, it first comes down to our own personal relationship with God, who is alive and dwelling within. Chan states: “We would expect our new life with the Holy Spirit to look radically different from our old life without him.” In order to do so, it is critical to study the word and rid ourselves of any preconceived ideas about God and allow him to teach us as we listen to him. We can go into deeper communion with the Spirit and experience his power and presence, if we choose to listen and stop ignoring.

I know that I am tired of holding back. I want to grow and listen and find more understanding. I am not trying to be Negative Nancy or preach what I am sure is so obvious to most, but honestly… have we failed to truly recognize his living Spirit? This all may seem so elementary, but oh so refreshing.