Thank you, Gary, for moving the blackboard.
Appreciate it.
Praise the Lord.
Okay, this morning we want to continue, by
the help of God's grace, the deep dealings
of God.
And this is going to be part three.
The deep dealings of God.
Father, we thank you and praise you today
for your presence.
We thank you, Lord, that you lowered yourself.
Oh, so low, Lord, you came.
Leaving the corridors of heaven, the place of
perfection, the place, Lord, where nothing but what
is wholesome and nothing but what is lovely
and nothing but what is like you.
You left that place, Lord, and came to
a sin-cursed earth where there was every
abominable and detestable deed that could be imagined
in operation.
Lord, that's way too big for us to
touch.
We don't know of such love, Lord.
We talk about it, but we don't know
of it.
We pray, Lord, that you would be gracious
to us this morning, and teach us something
of that love, where you were able to
walk among us, became vulnerable, and suffered the
pain and the sorrow of all the curse
in your own person, so that you could
lift us out of darkness and bring us
into fellowship with you.
Lord, help us along these lines, Lord, to
see the depths of your work in our
life in order to accomplish your end, that
being a place where you're welcome, a place
where it's all about you.
So, we commit these next few moments into
your hands, Lord, and do pray for divine
help and revelation.
Beloved, we're touching on those things that are
beyond our grasp.
We're touching on things beyond our ability to
understand apart from the Lord, apart from His
grace, apart from His dealing in our life.
And so, we walk softly in this area,
because these are things that God Himself is
doing, that God Himself can secure, that God
Himself alone can make real in our lives.
We began in Psalm 39, then we moved
on to various other different Scriptures, and now
we're being brought to the place where we're
looking at the deep dealings of God in
our life as they relate to enabling us
to come to know the Lord in increasing
measure.
So, this can be entitled the deep dealings
of God, knowing the Lord.
If you remember, beloved, the Apostle Paul in
Philippians chapter 3, you can turn there.
I'm going to read just a few verses
from there.
Here was a man who had been on
the way, and when the term is used,
on the way, it refers to having been
a Christian, having been apprehended.
He'd been on the way a few decades
already, yet remarkably, because he
heard the call, and he was apprehended by
God, many, many, many years later, this was
the testimony of his soul.
And this is, again, very big, very vast,
something that we're just scratching the surface on.
Philippians chapter 3, beginning in verse 7, but
what things were gain to me?
What things were gain to me?
Those I counted loss for Christ.
We're touching something really way too big for
us now.
Those things that were gain to me, those
I counted loss for Christ.
We're touching something here of a deep, deep
dealing of God in the life of Paul.
A very deep, heart-searching dealing of God.
Beloved, it's not a light thing for a
man to be able to say.
The things that are dear to me, I
count loss for Christ.
It's not something we can say lightly.
It's not something that we can just wake
up one morning and decide, well, the things
that are dear to me, I consider loss
for Christ.
Such a confession necessitates, such a confession requires,
and all so deep, deep dealing of God
in our life.
Can that be said by our own hearts
today?
But the things that were gain to me,
the things that were to His advantage, His
reputation, His religious heritage, the things that would
enable Him to have confidence in the flesh,
His credentials, His gifts, the things that
might allow Him to trust, His circumcision, He
being of the tribe of Benjamin, His standing
in the religion of the Pharisees, being a
Pharisee, touching the righteousness which was by the
law, He considered Himself blameless.
That meant He did everything He was supposed
to do.
He lived very faithfully to a law of
obedience, a law of conforming to regulations and
codes, and He looked so good outwardly.
He looked so perfect outwardly.
But the things that were gain to me,
I count loss for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things.
Now there's that, the loss of all things
again.
Verse number 7, I count loss.
Verse number 8, the loss of all things.
And do count them as dung, or refuge,
or trash, or that which is worthy of
being thrown away.
Again, we're touching something here of the deep
dealings of God.
We're touching something about the deep dealings of
God regarding God working within our heart a
passion of wanting to know the Lord.
Paul knew the Lord.
He had known the Lord for several decades,
but yet he was a man that was
still apprehended, still after, still pursuing, still desiring
to know the Lord.
You see, our going on to know the
Lord is directly related to our capacity to
count all things as dung.
Our going on to know the Lord is
in direct relation to God's work in our
life, enabling us to count all things but
refuge.
You see, one cannot go on to know
the Lord without having come to the place
where we are growing more and more and
more in our capacity to say, I count
all things a loss.
Because going on to know the Lord and
finding Him in the capacity of Lord and
Master means that all rivalry is put down.
Anything that would compete with Him.
And so the deeper dealings of God in
our life are those things that God brings
into our life, allows to come into our
life, that work in us a two-fold
process.
And we can't forget about this two-fold
process.
Number one, it's the knowing the Lord.
It's a good thing if today you are
aware inside the depths of your being an
ever-growing passion to know the Lord.
It's a good thing.
It's a blessed position to be in.
Brothers and sisters, those who are in the
world who don't know of God's dealings don't
wake up morning by morning with a passion
to know the Lord.
Just the fact that we desire to know
the Lord, just the fact that we desire
after Him proves that His grace is working
in our life.
But all this is a searching thing.
It's a deep thing.
This is something that goes beyond the surface
and goes into the depths of our being.
And so the two-fold process of the
deep dealing of God has to do with
knowing the Lord, but along with that, we
are being enabled in an ever-increasing manner
to count all things as done.
Now notice carefully, if this process somehow stops,
this process stops.
Okay?
If in our dealings with God, in His
dealings with us, we begin to stumble over
this issue of counting all things but lost,
and we're going to only begin today, and
we certainly won't get through it, but we're
working our way toward Abraham because we're seeing
how in Abraham God secured a picture of
the intention of His harp, how He put
within the desire of a man to know
Him.
Abraham lived in the midst of a godless
culture that they were worshiping many different gods.
They were worshiping all manner of gods.
Now I don't want to get ahead of
myself, but the whole process began when Abraham
heard the Lord.
The whole thing began with Samuel, David, when
he heard the Lord.
The whole thing began with David when he
heard the Lord.
The whole thing began with Isaiah when he
saw and heard the Lord.
The whole thing began with Peter when he
was just an old fisherman and he heard
the Lord.
Hey, Peter, come, follow me.
The whole thing happened when Paul heard the
Lord.
He was on his way.
He thought he was doing God a favor
by correcting these heretics, but lo and behold,
on his way, on the road, he heard
the Lord.
It all begins when we hear the Lord.
So this is where we're heading.
But not to jump ahead of ourself, in
hearing the Lord and that birthing in us
a desire for the Lord, there is a
corresponding work in our hearts that goes hand
in hand with our desire to know the
Lord, and that is the counting all things
as done.
And in the life of Abraham, we see
a vivid picture of God putting in a
man the desire to know Him and then
a corresponding work in that man, stripping him
from all things that were dear to him,
so that at the end of Abraham's life,
he stood as an old man, truly, truly,
having been proven through life itself to be
a man in whom the grace of God
secured a testimony where he could say, it
is God alone that I'm after.
It is God alone that I'm after.
Oh, the depths of these things.
The depths of these things.
Brothers and sisters, this is where we're heading
if we follow on to know the Lord.
As our brother Alan was praying, oh God,
help us to respond to the grace of
God.
This is where we're heading as we respond
to the grace of God.
Brothers and sisters, this is where you're going
to head if you follow the heavenly path,
the heavenly vision, the heavenly voice, the heavenly
word.
If you continue along the heavenly way, you
will experience both the insatiable passion to know
the true and living God, and at the
same time, you will experience a painful and
deep feeling of God stripping you and severing
you and divorcing you from every and anything
so that your heart is truly committed to
Him alone.
It is not something that you can conjure
up.
It is not something that you can work
up by legalism or by law or by
trying to follow codes and rules.
It is the work of God and it
is perfected in our lives as in brokenness
we cooperate with God with the testimony, yes
Lord, have your way in my life.
Yes Lord, have your way in my life.
And so this is where we're heading as
a company of believers.
And we see in Paul this utterness.
We see in Paul this incredible work of
grace.
May I ask you a question?
Are you experiencing, have you experienced, and are
you experiencing right now this incredible two-fold
work in your life where you want to
know the Lord, but at the same time,
you seem to be in a crucible.
You seem to be in a furnace.
Why?
Because God is doing the second part of
that work in your life.
It's not only just about saying, I want
to know the Lord more than anything.
It's about a deep heart-searching, heart-wrenching,
heart-revealing work of God where the Lord
has given you an opportunity to truly know
Him and to truly have Him as your
King of Kings.
And so right now in our lives there's
deep works going on.
There's deep dealings going on.
There's deep searchings going on.
And God is giving us opportunity to let
go.
He's giving us opportunity to recognize, hey, I've
got to count this as done.
I've got to let go of this.
This was important to me at one time.
Hey, this thing I really had a hold
on, but now God is requiring me to
let go.
It might be your reputation.
I don't know what it is, but God
is going to work this two-fold process
in you and I as we follow on
to know Him.
Verse 8, Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom
I have suffered the loss of all things,
and do count them but done, that I
may win Christ and be found in Him,
not having my own righteousness which is of
the law.
A righteousness which is of the law.
My own righteousness.
There is that righteousness which is our own,
and then there is that righteousness which is
of God.
And God is stripping us from our own
righteousness.
He's stripping us from being able to glory
in anything or anyone other than Him.
That's the work of God.
He's stripping us from all the things that
we can trace back to something we've done,
or something we can boast in, or something
that we can brag in.
Let me tell you something, beloved.
If there is any kind of idol in
your heart this morning, I don't care if
it's a career, I don't care if it's
a dream, I don't care if it's a
person, I don't care what it is.
God will make you to see that that
idol has clay feet.
He's got to do it.
He's got to, because He alone is the
one that we can glory in.
He alone is the one that we can
truly, truly lay our life into, and lay
our life on.
He alone.
And so the searchings of God, and the
depths of God's work, is the process of
releasing our heart, releasing our hold from anything,
so that in the midst of life we
are truly strangers and pilgrims.
We're looking for a city, but it's not
made with the hands of man.
Our dream is not something that can be
realized in this world.
Let me tell you, if the extent of
your dream, if the extent of your desires
are those things that can be realized in
this life, then there's a need for further
readjustment, for further work.
God doesn't want His people to have dreams
that simply amount to something they can see
with their eyes, and touch with their hands,
and be able to point toward and say,
look what God gave me.
He wants us heavenly minded.
And this is the way of the deep
dealings of God in our life.
Verse 10, that I may know Him, and
the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship
of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His
death.
There in verse 10 we have a statement,
and do you know everything in that statement
has to do with one thing?
Jesus Christ.
It has to do with knowing Him, it
has to do with the fellowship of His
sufferings, it has to do with being conformable
to His death, that I might somehow know
the resurrection out from among the dead.
You see what God is doing?
He's bringing singleness, singleness of heart into our
lives.
He secured in Paul a man that had
singleness of heart, that here is a man
full of aspiration, a gifted man, a tremendously
gifted man, tremendous history, tremendous religious history, sat
under the feet of Gamaliel, a great teacher
of the law, a great future in the
religious world, a man esteemed by men, a
man that had a great future, and where
does he end up?
Where does he end up?
All that is dung to me.
All that is refuge to me.
All that is rubbish to me.
All the work of God in the heart
of this man, all the work of God,
all the depths of God's work, how can
we be released from the very passions of
our soul?
How can we be released by God alone?
And here's a man, here's a man who
had so much going for him, so much
to boast in and to brag in, so
much to talk to people about.
Oh, how telling it is what we talk
to people about, or should I say who
we talk to people about.
How telling it is, how tempting it could
have been for Paul to just occupy his
time talking about himself.
My, my, did you sit under the feet
of Gamaliel?
I did.
Were you a Pharisee among Pharisees?
I was.
How was your status in relation to the
law?
I was blameless.
I was faithful.
But all the depths of God, the depths
of God's work in Paul's life, stripping Paul
from talking about himself, stripping Paul from his
thoughts preoccupied with himself.
Oh, how we have this chronic, deadly condition.
You know what that is?
We're preoccupied with ourselves, aren't we?
Oh, our thoughts are so often on ourself.
But here's a man, here's a man who
had so much and he was reduced to
so little.
And he sums it up in one sentence,
and every phrase and word in the sentence
has to do with Jesus Christ.
All the deep works of God to take
something so vast in man's eyes, something so,
so relative to himself, and to reduce him
down to that I might know Him.
Wow, I trust this stirs the depths of
your being, the depths of your being.
Oh God, touch us.
Let us hear the call.
I need
the Lord to get at us in this
way.
Get at us.
So don't despair now.
Don't despair when you find not only the
desire to know the Lord.
You might tell your brothers and sisters, your
husband, wife, your close friends, oh, how I
long to know the Lord.
That's good.
But don't despair.
Don't despair now when the other part of
this kicks in.
And you find the Lord's got you in
a furnace.
He's got you cooking.
What's wrong?
Nothing.
That's what the whole meaning of the New
Testament is.
That's what the words of James and Peter,
think it not strange concerning the fiery trials.
Think it not strange.
Count it pure joy, brothers, when you find
yourself in the midst of all kinds of
tests and trials and tribulations and afflictions, knowing,
knowing that the trying, the testing of your
faith, what is God doing?
He's giving you the desire of your heart
to know the Lord as Lord and Master
through giving you opportunity to count all things.
That's inclusive.
You know, the word inclusive means it's all
-encompassing.
As we walk through the life of Abraham,
we're going to even see God, if we
follow on to know Him, will require us
to lay at His altar the very thing
that He promised us, Isaac, the son of
promise.
Okay, let's begin.
Let's begin this process.
Let's walk together for a few more minutes.
Okay?
Let's walk together for a few more minutes.
Now, don't forget, don't forget this all-important
process.
Mark it down in your Bibles.
Do something.
Never forget, two sides to the same coin.
If I desire to know the Lord, if
I wake up morning by morning and I'm
just apprehended with a passion to know the
Lord, along with that will come deep dealings
of God in order to get in us
the same heart that Paul had, that Moses
had, that Peter had, that Abraham had, that
Isaiah had, that Jeremiah had, and that is,
on this road, on this journey, God is
bringing me, God is bringing me, and we
can't forget Job.
Actually, as soon as we get done with
Abraham and Moses, I'm looking to the Lord
to touch on Job, because Job teaches us
something so important.
Do you know that the double blessing came
to Job after he came through, not before?
And so many Christians want the double blessing,
and the double blessing speaks of that birthright
that was promised to Christ as the firstborn,
the heir of all things, the place of
authority and power.
That's what Job got at the end.
He got twice as much as everything he
had.
But see, that blessing comes after Job went
through this process of deep dealings, after Job
came through the furnace, and he stood on
the other side as a man stripped of
self-righteousness, stripped of everything.
He had heard of God in his ears.
But after he went through this process, he
saw God face to face, and what does
it say?
He abhorred himself.
We sort of have a love affair with
ourself.
Job abhorred himself.
And so don't be surprised, beloved, if God
works in your life like Job.
But we won't go there now.
We won't go there now.
What we want to do is we want
to remember this two-fold process of knowing
the Lord and being stripped.
And we're going to begin by looking in
Romans.
I just want to coin a phrase here
that's found in the book of Romans to
help us as an introductory thought to the
man called Abraham.
It says in verse number 17 of Romans
chapter 4, as it is written, I have
made thee a father of many nations.
A father of many nations.
A father is a beginner, someone who begins
something.
We have sung songs as kids, Father Abraham
had many sons.
Father Abraham.
There's significance why God calls Abraham Father.
Because in him, in Abraham, God patterns.
God pictures.
God uses Abraham as a type of the
dealings that He wants to bring to Abraham's
children.
Abraham's children are we who are born of
God.
And so in Abraham we see a very
vivid picture of God's heart regarding the journey
that we are to be on as Christians.
And so it's important for us to understand
in the life of Abraham we see a
picture.
Let's begin in Genesis chapter 12.
Genesis chapter 12.
Now remember what we're doing.
Listen closely.
We're not giving information out.
We're not just simply preaching a sermon, an
interesting sermon.
We want to show in a very living,
real way the actual kind of dealing that
you will experience.
You may have already experienced this.
You may be along this journey.
This might be the first time that you're
coming to hear such dealings that God would
want to work in your life.
Wherever you are, this is applicable to you.
This is applicable to you.
So we're looking here at Father Abraham who
is a picture or a type.
A picture or a type of the way
God wants to deal in your life and
my life.
And all of these different kinds of dealings
in the life of Abraham represent and teach
us something of the deep dealings of God.
And the end, the purpose of the deep
dealings of God is to have a people
where Christ has all the rights, where Christ
has all lordship.
You see, God's passion, and this is why
God revealed Himself to Abraham, because God's passion
from the beginning, and we touched on this
several weeks ago, was that He wanted to
find a home.
He wanted to find a habitation, a place
where He could live, a place where His
rights were honored.
You see, the whole world, listen, the whole
world is under the power of the evil
one, beloved.
The whole world is engaged in doing all
the evil imaginations of their heart, but yet
the earth is the Lord's.
Can you see it?
Do you see this revelation?
The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof.
Everything in the earth belongs to God.
Listen, the earth was created by God and
for God's glory.
The earth was created because God wanted a
place to establish His honor and His glory
and His lordship, but yet what happened?
We know something of that in the beginning
of Genesis, where a great war took place,
and Satan came and seduced God's creation, man.
From that point on until this present point,
there's been a horrendous conflict, and do you
know what this conflict is all about?
It's more about us.
This conflict has to do with the rights
of God, the rights of Christ.
It has to do with the rights of
Christ in this world, in this universe, and
in particular, in your life and my life.
God's rights in your life and my life.
That's what He's after, you see?
And so when we see the work of
God in Abraham, we see God taking meticulous
effort to secure His rights in a man,
so that in the midst of foreign humanity,
in the midst of perverse hearts, perverse desires,
perverse aspirations, God has a man whose name
is Abram, whose name was changed to Abraham,
and God says to all heaven, hey, everybody
hush up, and everybody hushes up, because in
heaven, people listen to God.
Everybody hushes up, and God says, everybody peek
over the corriers of heaven and look down
there in Canaan land, and everybody looks, and
God says, no, no, no, you're looking at
all the sin, you're looking at all the
ego, you're looking at all the vanity, look
in, zero in on that man called Abraham.
What do you see?
And all the angels begin to cry, and
all heaven begins to just look in marvel,
and they see a man.
They see through the man.
They see through him.
God lets them see the heart of the
man, and there in the heart of that
man is a sanctuary, and God is sitting
in that sanctuary.
Jehovah, as opposed to the gods that were
in the land of Canaan, the gods of
earth, and the gods of immorality, and the
gods of greed, Abraham had a sanctuary where
Jehovah was sitting, and God says, that pleases
me.
That's what he's after.
That's what God is after in your life
and my life today, and of course, this
is turned into the corporate picture.
That's what the body of Christ is supposed
to be.
A place where God's rights are seen.
Chapter 12, Genesis, Now the Lord.
That's significant.
That's significant if you go to chapter 11,
because chapter 11 tells us the condition of
the world, and the
whole earth, chapter 11, was of one language
and of one speech.
This is a unity.
This is a oneness, but it was not
a unity and a oneness for God, for
the true Lord of heaven and earth.
It was a unity and a oneness with
the intent to accomplish every evil desire of
man's heart.
So you see what God was dealing with
on the earth.
He was dealing with the world being united.
The world coming under a one unity, but
it wasn't for Him.
And so God had to react to that.
Look at what the condition of the land
was.
Verse number 4, and they said, Go to,
let us build us a city and a
tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and
let us make us a name.
Let us make us a name.
You see the controversy God has with mankind?
Let us make us a name.
God doesn't want us to make us a
name.
God wants His name to be the thing
that has got our attention.
And so we see a movement here.
We see a whole movement that's touching the
whole earth.
And it's a movement of man to unify
and to strengthen himself in order to dispossess
finally, to throw out finally all that has
to do with the Lord God, with His
moral perfections, with His eternal ways.
Throw Him out.
Let's rid the name of God from earth,
and let's make us a name.
Oh, the danger of that lurking sin within
us.
But here's God's reaction.
Chapter 12, Now the Lord had said unto
Abraham, the
first step in this heavenly journey, and this
is the all-important step because this step
repeats itself over and over and over again.
And here's the first step in this heavenly
journey.
If we're ever going to satisfy God's heart
by becoming vessels in whom His lordship is
evidently seen, we've got to come to this
crisis, and that is this, hearing God's
word.
Now, beloved, this is not hearing God's word
with these ears.
It is hearing God's word in the ears
of our harm.
As we earlier mentioned, everyone's life is changed
when they hear God's word.
We look at Isaiah in chapter 6, and
he was a prophet.
He was a young prophet, but he had
gotten all his hope in the King Uzziah.
He had hope that King Uzziah was the
answer to deliver Israel from all of the...
It wasn't until Isaiah died that King Uzziah
saw the Lord.
It wasn't until Uzziah died that Isaiah saw
the Lord.
Now listen, listen carefully.
In seeing the Lord, he heard the Lord,
and Isaiah's ministry was transformed from that moment
on.
When he heard the Lord, that began a
stripping process in Isaiah's life.
He stopped looking to Uzziah.
He stopped looking.
He was weaned.
He was delivered.
His eyes fell upon the Lord.
We see this in the life of Peter
as a fisherman.
He was just living his life, good fisherman,
had dreams and aspirations, but everything changed when
Jesus walked by and said, follow me.
The beginning of the deep dealings of God
within our life happens when we begin to
hear God's Word.
In Acts, I'm not going to go there,
in Acts chapter 7, verse 2, Acts 7,
verse 2, the writer Stephen identifies this experience
with a heavenly vision.
He says that Abraham had a heavenly vision.
When we hear God's Word, we are lifted
out of earth.
We are lifted out of the limitations of
earth in our own understanding, and we're brought
into a heavenly vision of the heavenly Savior,
the heavenliness of God, the heavenliness of our
calling.
We need to hear God's Word.
Listen, we need to be lifted out of
the earthliness of being bound to our natural
thoughts and our natural understanding.
We need emancipation so that we can see
something of the depths, the height, the width,
the length, the vastness of this heavenly call
that we've been called into.
Oh, how we need God to do this.
How we need God to do this.
So, first comes the call, the Word.
Have you heard the Word of God?
Do you hear the Word every day?
Are you waiting before God, listening for Him
to speak?
But now remember, with this Word, Abram was
awakened.
He was awakened to wanting to know God.
But right with that Word, remember the full
process?
An awakening to know the Lord, and then
a stripping, some kind of a stripping.
Every time you awaken to a deeper desire
for the Lord, you will be brought to
a position where you're going to have to
be stripped more deeply.
Watch what happens.
Genesis chapter 12.
We see not only the hearing of God,
the awakening to know God, but we hear,
Get thee out of thy country and from
thy kindred and from thy father's house unto
a land that I will show thee.
Divine separation.
As soon as Abraham heard the Word, God
began to separate him unto Himself.
God began to separate Abraham unto Himself.
Remember what God was looking for.
He was looking for a sanctuary in the
heart of Abraham.
And in order to find that sanctuary in
the heart of Abraham, God had to awaken
Abraham's ears to hear, but He also had
to begin the process of divine separation.
And likewise, beloved, as we are made subject
to the dealing of God, we're going to
experience the divine separation in our life.
Psalm 45.
We're going to be closing in a few
minutes.
Psalm 45.
This is a psalm about the work of
God in His bride.
Verse number 10.
Psalm 45.
Hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine
ear.
Forget also thine own people and thy father's
house.
Forget also thine own people and thy father's
house.
Here is a call of the Spirit of
God to this bride, telling her to forget
her father's house.
That is, turn your eyes from that which
is Turn your eyes from that which you
are accustomed to in your natural life, in
your natural world.
Turn your eyes from that which is simply
from this world, and turn them toward Me,
and I will begin to show you something
of the heavenliness of who I am and
who I want you to become.
Oh my Lord.
This severing and separation will be from the
world.
1 John chapter 2, 15 through 17.
James chapter 4.
Friendship with the world is an enemy of
God.
This separation will have to do with not
only the world, but it will have to
do with our very life, the
dealings of God going into the very depths
of our being and detaching us from things
that we may hold too dearly so
that He is all and all.
We're on a journey, beloved.
We're just touching it now.
We're just touching it.
We're going to stop now.
We're going to give a few moments where
we can just meditate on the Lord, meditate
on His Word, and in these few moments
I want to encourage you to just hide
these things in your heart and patiently look
to the Lord to work these in your
life.
We're moving toward God's end, a place
for Himself in your life and mine.
Father, we thank You for Thy presence and
oh God, how we feel so inadequate to
touch these things and we feel so inadequate.
But nevertheless, Lord, it's Thy work.
Overrule our weaknesses and may we hear Your
voice amidst our words this morning and may
an awakening occur in our heart, helping us
to see the deep dealing of God in
our life, leading us toward the vastness of
Christ, the beauty of Christ.
We commit these things into Your hands, Father,
as You alone can do it.
Thank You, Lord.
Search our hearts, oh God, and encourage us.
Encourage us, Lord, today.
I just want to encourage you in the
midst of this dealing of God that's here
now.
Do spend time, beloved, listening.
Do spend time waiting on God.
Oh, do spend time, beloved.
There is such a passion within our Father
in heaven to make known to us these
things and they all begin.
They all begin and are perfected as we
learn to listen and wait.
And so, Father, we do look to You.
We thank You for this wonderful visitation of
Your presence here.
The searching, oh, the searching of Your Spirit,
the confirming of Your Word, how thankful we
are.
But God, I do pray that this would
not be something we only experience on Sundays,
but that this would become customary, something that
occurs in the homes, that we would be
sensitive to these times when in our homes
we would just quiet everything down, turn off
the television, the VCR, the radio, forget about
the things that may need to be done
and just wait on God.
God, rescue us from this fast pace.
Make our homes, Lord, places where we hear
Your Word and are instructed by You.
Oh, God, please, please, Lord, do this work.
Let's listen, Lord.
Help us to listen and obey You.