Update on the Call and Meditate upon Unhealthy Eyes

I am going back to the place God provided as part-time employment for a little while last year at a wage I haven't been paid since my 20's. This week I worked full time getting a training refresher so I could begin 12 part-time hours going forward. It is not a position I would ever take or pursue, but God is leading, not me. There is kingdom harvest there as I mentioned in testimony from the post of 6-9-17.

God's ways are not our ways. We do not love the way He loves. We are not predisposed to forsake our power, our position, and plans to humbly follow by faith wherever the Spirit leads. We want control. We want glory. We want to be important. We want what we want when we want it, in the way we want it. But left to ourselves, we will never see His reflection looking back at us. He alone knows how to conform us to his image.

2 Corinthians 317 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

He calls us to meditate and ponder the extreme extent of His love. He calls us to be willing to taste some of that suffering for ourselves. Certainly no one will ever "taste" what he tasted on our behalf, but we can know the flavor.

This has been a big part of what the Lord has helped me with in my relationship with Him. Over many years, He has shown me how much my own will is in direct opposition to a Savior who gave up all His glory to willingly suffer extreme forms of humiliation, rejection, poverty, pain, betrayal, loneliness, mental anguish, unjust punishment, false accusations, torture, and God's wrath.

The more clearly I have seen his glory and walked a path of tasting the flavor of his more extreme taste, the more clearly I am seeing his heart being formed in me. Praise God the gift of His Sacrifice is an unending supply of grace, because I have needed it as I still battle him. But He wins more quickly, I am loving in ways I have never loved, praying in ways I have never prayed, being content in ways I have not been content. I am seeking the lost and feeding God's own at the loss of myself. But there is treasure to be discovered there, there is a longing for salvation. There is a desperate need for peace and joy and release from captivity.

I see it in the face of 92 year old the Lord sent me to go visit recently, the 80 year old too that is her faithful friend. I hear it in the 67 year old just diagnosed with prostate cancer. It is in the whisper of the spirit I recently heard as the Lord impressed me to stop what I was doing and go talk to my retired neighbor. It is in the call to go back to the medical facility and "see" and "listen" to people, talk to them, and share "Good News".

It has been a stretch of faith to depend upon God for my daily needs, to believe the $60 I need for a bill will come on the day I need it. But God is faithful and provides!

Jesus says "Seek first the kingdom of God and 'all these things' will be given to you as well." As the Lord has reordered my life, He does give all we need. In ways I never imagined! In my mid 30's when I made a choice to let go of career and follow at all costs, I let go of my nice size retirement account and any thoughts of replacing it. Many call it crazy and irresponsible. Not God. Recently someone was burdened for me and and has made sure I will be okay when I reach that time in my life! That is the miraculous provision of God! That is a God who goes above and beyond! 15 years later, He stepped in and replaced a "nest egg" I let go of plus some! Seek first the kingdom of God!

Take time to meditate upon whether your eyes are healthy or unhealthy. The reference is a picture to ponder about a greedy or generous soul. Ask the Lord to cleanse, purge, and fill you with His light. It is not about condemnation, it is about the humble cry of, "Lord, I need you to change me because I can not. Help me!"

Exercise:  

1. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring revelation.  
2. Read the Matthew 6 section below several times before praying to assess the state of your eyes.  Notice what words jump out at you.  
3. Note what thoughts that come up and simply tell God what you are thinking and feeling.  Ask Him to help you understand and direct your mind to a state of renewal by His love. 
4. Assess whether you think you have to work for everything or if you believe that He promises to give you all that you need as you make Him priority, Matthew 6:33.  

​Matthew 6: 19-34- 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
23 But if your eyes are unhealthy your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
​34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


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