So this is love!

I Cor. 13:5&6 Love, Gods love in us, does not insist on its own rights or its own way for it is not self-seeking.

Don’t you dare talk to me that way---don’t you ever treat me like that again!!! These are rights that sound reasonable to say or feel in the midst of certain circumstances, or in the presence of certain people.
If we allow this thought process to have its way in our minds, will, and emotions—if we allow this fleshly thinking to have any root in us at all, we oppose the law of love. Gods love does not insist on any rights. The question is-- where do we draw the line so we do not become trampled underfoot by others whims and desires? Well, to tell the truth, we don’t. He does. The secret is to learn to recognize the voice of God so we are only about the Fathers business. Jesus was surrounded by need and did not meet every one He saw. What he did do was whatever the Father told Him to do. This needs to be our mindset. When we are about the Father’s business He takes care of us and protects and defends us. He draws that line in the sand for us. It is imperative to be able to hear God’s voice and follow it and not be distracted by a need before us or a desire to run away from a situation because it is uncomfortable. When we know just what he is saying we will know just what our responses should be. If we are looking for a quick pat answer that will always be the default response in kingdom living we will be sorely disappointed. People and situations vary so we must attune ourselves to the sound of God. What does this sound like? His sound can strike the chord of peace in situations. His sound can strike the dissonant tones that create a tempest. His sound is always rooted in love, and will never cause us to be insistent about our rights. His sound does not look to appease self. His sound is patience and kindness, forgiveness and grace. His sound is righteousness, truth, and justice. When we know what He sounds like, instead of being run roughshod over, we will be the ones in control, like Jesus was with Pilate, and we will choose to lay our life down. It will be a choice we make, not something we are forced to do---compelled by love alone. We do not hand over our power to another person--no---we hand it over to God Himself, and then we walk in the power and authority of the choice we made to surrender to Him. Whether He leads us to turn over the money changers tables or leads us like a lamb going to the slaughter opening not our mouths, we are not under the control of any person. We have maintained our control and position by relinquishing it to God.
In 1Corinthians 13, love is defined. God calls us to operate in all of it—not just the portion of love we are willing to dole out to ‘deserving persons’. Real love costs us our lives. When we surrender to love, we surrender our rights. We surrender all our expectations, all our hopes and dreams. We surrender all our ways of doing and thinking, of acting and reacting. When we surrender, we replace self seeking with God seeking. We must look beyond our needs and wants, beyond our desires, and rights, and lay them down. You will find what has just been laid down will in fact create the bridge needed to span the chasm between His kingdom living and our lives. Transformation is a crossing over from our living to His Life. We cross over on that bridge of surrender. The slats on that bridge are formed when we lay down our will, desires, rights, knowledge, experience, emotions, education, expectations…..and only when we lay them all down can the way be formed for us that will lead to our true destiny. And what is that?—to impart life through His love.
This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and GAVE HIMSELF. Let us therefore go and do likewise.

Acceptance with Joy

"For love comes into the heart not by trying to force it, but by accepting people as they are, and bearing all that they do against you." This is from the book Mountains of Spices

This will also magnify our love towards God—accepting each situation that comes upon us as from His Hand. And we are to accept them with JOY---not resignation. We accept joyfully because it will produce something. The seed, when left to die, always does! As we begin to accept what comes our way, bitterness and resentment, self-pity and despair will fly out the window of our hearts, for to accept is to surrender to the truth that He knows what is needed. And to accept with joy gives us strength for the journey.
When we surrender to trusting Him by accepting all things as from His Hand, and when we do this with the joy that gives us our strength, we can be assured our destination will be arrived upon. Constant and consistent surrender produce acceptance and constant and consistent acceptance produces peace—which we are to be led forth by—so therein lies the compass for our journey to the High Places—peace! And it is all rooted in what loves truest nature is---Acceptance with joy.

1-2-3 Go!

Judges 19:20
A man and his concubine were traveling back home to Israel and stopped in a city for the night. This city was a Benjamite city and they thought they were safe. While there, this man gave his concubine to some worthless men to appease them from attacking him. The mob raped and abused her so much she died. The man told the Israelites what happened and they tried to get the Benjamites to bring the men who did this to justice. The Benjamites refused so the Israelites inquired of the Lord if they should fight against them---and God said yes. God instructed Judah to be the first tribe to fight. Interesting choice since Judah means praise……

So the battle ensued and even though God said yes they were to fight, the Israelites were defeated that first day at their first battle. Then the Israelites went to fight a second time once again asking God if they should go. God said yes—go! And they lost again!! Then all the Israelites---the entire army---went to the house of God, wept, prayed and fasted all day long till evening. There they offered burnt offerings, and peace offerings before God.
Once again, they inquire of God about going forth to fight, and God said go and fight---again! And this time God said He would deliver their enemy into their hands.
So they went forth to fight, but (v34) the battle was very hard.

This story proves God can lead us right into the jaws of defeat! Defeated they were, indeed, but since we know the end of the story we know not defeated in their quest to triumph over the Benjamites in the end. God’s people inquired of Him—should we fight Lord? In essence they were asking---will You be with us so we can prevail over our foes? God told them to go and fight and the people thought –if God is for us who can be against us?
But the reality was that they lost and their enemy had the victory. How often do we run up against a wall thinking God was with us, that He was going to deliver us, and because it didn’t happen the first or even second time, we then quit? These people were sure they heard God. They actually DID hear God. God told them to go fight. God allowed them to be defeated. When Paul said in Corinthians—thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph—it was never intended to mean without a fight. It wasn’t about instant gratification. The triumph came, but God did not allow it to come easily. We get this notion in the millennium Christianity we are exposed to that if God says to us ‘go and fight’, our victory will be quick. We think that God will do all the work and all He requires of us is to just stand back and watch because “the battle is the Lord’s”. The battle is His. His to decide when and where the victory comes. But we are to do the fighting. We are His army. And make no mistake; you can have victory in your heart without the outward manifestation of it. It is delineated by a relationship built on trust. The Israelites knew about this. Why else would they continue fighting after all the loss? Because they believed in Him, not in their expectations of what they thought He should do. They trusted God with the final outcome.

After expectations of God coming to the rescue did not appear, what did the Israelites do? They wept before the Lord. And after the second defeat---huge losses of life might I add---they went to the house of God and lay before the Lord all day, fasting all day, offering sacrifices for their sin all day, offering peace offerings, all day. Then God says, go and this time you will have breakthrough. After the fasting. After the prayer. After the offerings of self. After the repentance of sin.

We think just saying the words the right way---just reminding God of what He said will give us the quick, instant “victory in a box” our microwave society is used to. No----it must cost us dearly. Battles will be lost, casualties will be high, faith will be assaulted and self doubting will begin. We may say to ourselves, ‘was that really God? It sure doesn’t look like everyone says it should if it really was Him. People are dead and two times in a row we lose the fight and now those watching us are laughing at us.’

So what is God saying to us where we are right now?
First of all we need to ask Him what we should be doing, to inquire of Him and His ways for us, and to only fight the battles He has chosen for us, in order to prevent needless casualties.
Then we need to praise Him. It was no accident Judah was the first tribe that God Himself chose to go forth into the battle. We do not realize the power of our praise! Not the praise that says ‘I praise you Lord for defeating this enemy’, like our carefully placed words are going to win this fight, no, rather it is the praise from our hearts that will say---“Who is like our God? He is mighty to save! There is nothing to hard for Him!”
Then we must believe and trust that no matter how it looks, ultimately victory is ours if we do not grow weary in well doing, as we are instructed in Galatians 6:9. In fact, Paul tells us that if we succeed in fighting without growing weary then we will reap a great harvest!
If the battle is not being won, then we need to take spiritual inventory. We get into His presence and weep, and fast and pray and repent, and give ourselves as peace offerings to Him, so He can cleanse us, strengthen us, and make us ready for breakthrough. . If we keep fighting battles that are consistently lost, we need to determine whose battles they are. When the Israelites inquired of God it was through a man. God still uses men to divulge His purposes and intent. Do not be afraid to ask the spiritual opinion of a Godly acquaintance.

Finally, we must put forth the effort that goes into the fight! They said the battle was hard. It IS hard! It can be quite difficult to fight against our wrong attitudes and actions, to fight through discouragement and fear. We must equip ourselves with the heavenly armor He’s provided us. It can be hard to hold up our shield and wield our Sword of the Spirit. You cannot hold a shield you do not have, and a dull sword will not cut through as it should. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word. We must spend time, daily in the Word so our shield will be strong, and our sword sharp and ready to defend.
Even when God said, ‘okay guys, go up one more time and this time you’ll have your breakthrough.’ The Word tells us the battle was hard. We seem to expect things to be easy if they are God. This is not always so.
Let us grow up in the faith, let us take courage and strengthen ourselves, and find God through prayer and fasting, to enable us to run the race He has chosen for us.
In the end, disaster came upon the Benjamites. Almost the entire tribe was wiped out, and all because they would not allow the sin in their camp to be dealt with.
Let us glean a lesson from these, and when confronted with sin in our lives, run to the altar, repent, inquire of God what He would have us do, offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, for all this loss could have been avoided if the sin had been acknowledged and dealt with. And always remember that fighting the good fight of faith wins the day!