"That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death"
Philippians 3:10
For the past few weeks I have been craving more of Jesus. When I awake in the morning I long to spend time in prayer. It doesn't matter how tired I am or not even the fact that I have may not have gotten much sleep the night before. But I vowed that I would not talk to anyone in the morning until I have talked with Him. Inside my heart lies this desire so hungry to know Him that it's unexplainable to many people. I find myself turning off the television now because I want so badly to hear from God. I want to get in the bible more. I want to pray more. As a matter of fact, the television is almost distinct in my home now. The more and more I crave the Word of God, the more distant television becomes.
I've been finding all the books that I can on Jesus. I've been consuming my mind and thoughts with sermons that focus on drawing close to Him. I would like to just share a few of the scriptures that have really been ministering to me lately.
"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer"
Psalms 19:14
"Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to Him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her"
Luke 10:38-42
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled"
Matthew 5:6
"Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you"
James 4:8
"Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart"
Jeremiah 29:12-13
These are just a few of the scriptures that I have been clinging onto recently. I pray these scriptures. I take them into the prayer closet with me and I lay them before God. There is something so powerful about the Word of God. It is life to you if you just speak it out. I know that pretty soon I will get my hearts' desire. I'm not quitting and I'm not letting go. My soul is parched. Sometimes it feels as if my very heart will burst from my chest. Through all my busy days I find myself just wanting to get alone with God. I can't remember ever feeling this way before. Back in the early 90's I had a wonderful experience with God. It was during this time that the Lord laid on me a spirit of prayer such as I never had. I walked some high heights in the Holy Spirit. The power and presence of God was all around me. But what He is doing now is a new thing. I've been praying for God to really give His people a new experience; a new walk; a new dedication. To take us back to our first love. But that will be borne out of a true heart of repentance. When Jesus spoke to the Church at Epesus in Revelation He told them to remember from the place they had fallen, and then to repent. Sometimes it's hard for us Christians to do that. To repent. We think because we go to church every Sunday and because we shout and speak in tongues that we are okay. We may not be on our way to hell but many of us have left our first love. We no longer feel that what we did to get saved that we have to continue doing the same thing to stay saved. We are in a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ and we must never get to the place where we are comfortable. We must continue to hunger and thirst to know more of Jesus. Our natural body craves water. It craves food. And we don't deny ourselves these things. We should not deny ourselves to crave and hunger for Jesus. We are in a constant tug of war with Satan. We must never let our guard down. We have to stand up to the devil.
"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you"
James 4:7
When I was a little girl growing up, and before I knew any better I use to think that verse was saying to run from the devil and to not put up any resistance. I thought it meant that if I didn't pay any attention to what the devil was doing, that he would eventually just leave me alone and find somebody else to mess with. But as I grew older I learned that to resist means "to set against" and "to withstand". It certainly doesn't mean to do absolutely nothing and ignore him. We must never turn our backs to Satan. We have to withstand him and we do that through much prayer and staying in the Word of God. That's our armour and ammunition.
We are living in those perilous days Apostle Paul talked about in 2 Timothy. It's time for us to really ask God to take us back to our first love and to put a hunger and thirst in us as never before. I'm convinced that this is the only way that we are going to make it in these last days. I pray that each of us all find our place in God. We have to get to know Him for ourselves. We have to know that He will be on board through all our storms. We need not fear anything that is happening in the world today. Jesus is standing at the door and He's knocking. Are we going to let Him in? Are we craving to know Him? Lord, please help us to know You more and more.
