"I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem, until her righteousness shines like a bright light and her salvation, like a flaming torch." (Isaiah 62:1)
I believe that in the wake of a most unprecedented season of our souls, not only is our King doing a new thing, He is doing it from the inside out. His kingdom has to first work its way into our hearts and then into the world that we are called to. It’s new wine being poured into new wine skins where we can trust Him to restore all things, but according to the new thing that He has in His mind and heart for us.
What better way to align our hearts with His than to get into His majestic presence and let worship pave the way forward, working miracles first within our hearts and then for all the world to see.
If this resonates with you even remotely, friend; then I hope you’ll make the time to check out this worship song by Red Rocks called,
Jesus always left all His miracle working power in the hands of our faith.
“According to your faith be it done to you.” (Mark 9:29, ESV)
He healed the sick, raised the dead, and delivered people – physically, spiritually and emotionally. He spoke life and liberty everywhere He went. In a culture where women were denigrated so much so that they weren’t even considered in a synagogue count, He affirmed and dignified them. He rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith when they doubted, but He never withheld His miracles due to it. He challenged the religious mindsets of first century Palestine and He still does the same today.
In the midst of the chaos and confusion of the times we find ourselves in, I feel Him whispering;
“Do you believe?”
I do hope that in response, our hearts can echo what gospel singer, Cece Winans has put together here,
Trust you’re doing well and walking in step with Him. I thought I’d pop in and extend a warm invitation to you. Though I do admit to being technologically challenged, I’m also grateful that I’m slowly learning. And what I am doing these days is learning to weave His creative and divine insight together through the nuggets that I feel He places on my heart from time to time to share here as well as on my Instagram story/highlights/posts. I have attached a screenshot for you to view. So should you desire to receive these updates, you may feel free to be a part of my writing journey via Instagram as well. I think you can type in, “gursimranchhatwal27” on Instagram to follow. Hope to see you there too and a big thank you for agreeing to walk with me here.
Wish you a blessed, peaceful and restful week ahead.
“‘More’ is never enough, but ‘less’ in the anointed hands of Jesus will always be more than enough.”
In my experience thus far, I’ve noticed that a deceptive snare of the enemy that we, if not careful, can easily fall into, is a fundamental feeling that says,
“Not enough.”
We can feel, from time to time, that if only we had more finances, resources, skillsets or connections that we could then find the rest, satisfaction and solace we need. We tend to strive to make things happen in our own strength and inevitably end up feeling empty and exhausted. While the list of our aspirations seems unending, the state of our inner man seems to be dwindling. We may try to receive affirmation and validation from things that are external in the vain hope that it may serve to satisfy a need that in reality is perhaps embedded in a much deeper root than what meets the eye.
I’m drawn back, as I write, to the Garden of Eden. The crafty serpent slithered over to Eve and tempted her to not only doubt the wisdom of what God had said to Adam and her, but also undermined their identity as image bearers of God. Adam and Eve, as the first beings to be created, were by divine design made in the image of God. They bore the likeness of God. So isn’t it surprising to note how the serpent tricks Eve into believing the lie that if she would eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then her eyes would be opened and she would be, ‘like God?’
She already was. And so was Adam.
I don’t think the serpent has ceased ever since. He continues to plague us with feelings of insecurity and shame based thinking that is rooted in an all pervasive sense that we are not enough or that we do not have enough. His malicious lies, if believed, will always land us on a performance treadmill where we go the distance to prove things that need no proving at all. God’s Word has the final authority and it says that we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. We are children of God that are in a covenant relationship with Christ where no matter how many promises God has made, they are ALL, in Christ Jesus,
“Yes and Amen.”
God loves us just as we are. We have nothing to prove to Someone who died for us when we were yet dead in our transgressions. We were His enemies when Christ took the Cross to reconcile us to the Perfect Love of a most extravagant Father. He loved us at our worst, and the Good News is that our best won’t move Him either. Performance was nailed to the Cross at Calvary in exchange for an authentic relationship with Father God. There is no striving in His Grace, and as children that dine full at the Table of God’s Love and Truth, we can rest in Christ righteousness, leaving our own at the feet of Jesus.
God is Faithful. He keeps the promises He makes and it is in His nature to provide. One of my favourite Bible verses in this season we find ourselves in is,
“In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.” (Psalm 127:2)
An implication of the last verse here is that He provides for us even when we sleep. This Truth goes to reveal the perfect heart of our Heavenly Father. It is in His Nature to provide for His Children, and He doesn’t change. He is a sure hope and a firm foundation that we can safely stake our lives on. Nations will rise and fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.
Not only are we more than enough as image bearers and much loved children of God, the Truth is that because of our placement in Christ, we get to operate FROM victory, peace and rest; never towards it. We never have to fast forward or strive forward to achieve something that carries an elusive appeal of giving us that which ONLY and ONLY the love of God can.
Whether it’s Identity, worth and value. Whether it’s provision, hope and security.
It’s all found in His Love, His Truth and His Promises. The world may crumble and quake, but we get to stand on the Rock whose Name is Jesus. He fights for us FROM victory because He stands Undefeated. Therefore, as children that belong to Him, we can rest. We can have true peace and bask in the joy our hope inspires. We can learn to trust that His kingdom remains unshaken and we are privileged to be a tiny yet potently significant part of it. We can know deep down in our souls that we are enough and though we may not possess much, the Truth that sets us free is that our God is still a miracle working God and in the anointed hands of Jesus, our two fish and five loaves of bread will not only be enough, but in fact, more than enough.
I recall that all Jesus ever required of us was to believe.
Wholeness, I’m realising, is a remarkable revelation of the truth flowing from the Father Heart of God that says,
‘I’m holding the pieces of you together.’
It’s a sense of having all our parts interconnected; the good, the bad, the ugly, with neither shame nor condemnation. Those parts of us which have been traumatised by the events of the past, leaving our hearts broken and bitter, being brought into the Light of God and as a result of the Holy Spirit breathing upon them, they are renewed once again in the Father’s Love and affection. It’s when we stop striving in our own strength to make it appear as though we have it all together, and instead humbly confess our need for our Father’s healing, redemptive touch. In essence, it’s a wonderful and wonder-filled divine exchange of beauty for ashes in and through the Presence of Jesus.
I’ve come to understand that one cannot be truly made whole unless we have made a firm decision to forgive those that have hurt us, leaving us feeling abandoned, wounded or forsaken. The degree to which we are willing to receive the full measure of forgiveness from our Heavenly Father in and through our relationship with Christ is the degree to which we can let that forgiveness then flow through us to those that may have offended us. With Jesus in our lives as a most Perfect Father who stands in the gap with us and takes us by the hand, promising to never leave us nor forsake us; we can truly let go of the poison of unforgiveness and bitterness which is cancerous to our own souls. We can bless and pray for those that have hurt us and commit them into the faithful hands of our most loving God. We can release any need to hold them hostage to the need to pay for the consequences of their sin because when we do, we not only liberate them, we actually liberate us. We are the ones that are set free in the process so that we can tap into the fullness of the peace and joy that is our rightful inheritance in Christ.
Our enemy is Satan, and he deserves NO GROUND in our hearts and lives. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came so that we may have life, and that too more abundantly. Jesus went to the Cross at Calvary, died and rose again from the dead to give us the gift of an abundant, overflowing life: a life that is grounded in the rich soil of our Father’s tender affections and solidly rooted in the truth of our Identity as sons and daughters of God who are not victims of past circumstances that we need to hold onto offences and unforgiveness which create a false sense of control, but we are in fact, more than conquerors through Christ who are learning to guard our hearts with all diligence and reign above the state of our temporal circumstances. We are not destined to remain in a prison of past hurts but rather we have the privilege of acknowledging them, addressing them, forgiving and letting go of our matters to God who teaches us from the story of Joseph who went through more than a fair share of trouble and heartache that life may not be fair, but God is just. He is faithful to not only forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness but is also able to turn what the enemy meant for evil and work all things together for our good and His glory. The words of Joseph who chose to forgive his brothers that sold him into slavery, trusting God with his life through every leg of the journey, subsequently rising to become the ruler of Egypt; the kind intentions of our well able God are best revealed thus,
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” ( Genesis 50:20)
God not only vindicated Joseph but worked through it all so mightily that it brought tremendous benefit to the people of the land that he was called to. Our God is able to take the hurts and injustices of our broken pasts and redeem them in a way that not only leads us to freedom but serves to do so even for the lives of those that we are called to. Our decisions can be rooted in either fear or love. The last time I checked, He said,
A most refreshing and timely reminder that no matter where we find ourselves at and what our circumstances may be trying to suggest, we can rest because our God is Faithful.
There is something He has taught me this past season, and I did feel an unction to share it,
“When we know the Truth, we are set free; and when we live the Truth, we are changed.”
“We may be traversing the unknown, but when we are doing it with a very known God who graciously delights in making all things known, we can make peace with the tiny bits which we don’t yet know.”
When we don’t lose the purpose of the ‘now’ to the promise of the ‘next,’ we can be assured that we are walking in the light. We know we are walking in a way that honours the ways and the wisdom of the Lord above our own. We know we are seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness first and foremost, so that the less important things of life may be added to us and that too, abundantly.
God is a loving Father who delights in giving us the desires of our heart. No, that does not mean that He gives us whatever we want. Rather, it means that He gives us what TO want. But for that divine exchange to happen between our agenda and His desires, it is vital that we make spending time with Him our top priority. It is where we get to know the One who does know all things. And as we start to know Him better, we start to know ourselves a lot better too.
It is walking in the tension of that which we know and that which inspires our trust that makes the Cross in our lives. It is being able to walk in the light of the revelation that we do have on one hand, and trusting God with the mystery of the unknown on the other that forms the substratum of our faith. We cherish what we do know and we trust God with what we don’t know as we continue to seek to know Him more and more, the very Person and Presence of Jesus.
The Promise Maker and the Promise Keeper is always above the Promise itself. All the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, ‘Yes and Amen.’ God is not a man that He should lie. He is faithful to keep His covenant and well able to perform and perfect the fullness of that which He has spoken concerning our lives. But my journey has seen my perception of God go from perhaps viewing Him as a vending machine to stepping into the light of the truth that He is a most gracious Father that I have the privilege of not only being in relationship with, but also to be transformed into the likeness of, as we journey hand-in-hand.
It is in the journey that we are set free and transformed from one degree of glory to the next. It is in the journey that we develop our spiritual muscles of faith, trust and surrender. It is in the journey that the walls of shame, anger and bitterness come tumbling down; enabling us to step into the light, love and life of Christ. It is in the journey that our weakness is exposed so that our vulnerability can meet His strength. It is in the journey that amid the chaos and confusion of the world that surrounds us, we learn to stand on the integrity of who we are and whose we are. It is in the journey that we have the opportunity to deepen our intimacy and enrich our relationship with our most Perfect Father.
The journey is where we learn to walk on water with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the perfector of our faith. We start to learn things about ourselves that we never knew, and as we lean in to learn more from what He so willingly reveals, we start to learn more and more about this wonderful Person we are called to do life with.
Prayer goes from what once felt like a business transaction to a joyful communion with my Creator, Maker and Redeemer. Promises become our love language and faith is developed to see signs, wonders and miracles that attest to the great power of our Great God. Healing and wholeness take on a new meaning as priorities are shifted and recalibrated. Worship is revealed as our highest call as ‘beholding and becoming’ is established as the norm. Hearts are softened and minds are renewed as we learn to step into our truest identity as sons and daughters of The King of Glory.
Nothing remains the same as we continue to walk in step with a never changing God. He is the only thing that remains constant – the same; yesterday, today and forevermore. Experiencing Him is savouring a slice of Heaven on Earth till the echo in our hearts collides with the intention in His, and the only cry remains,
“Heavenly perspectives saturated in Truth possess the power to heal.”
The wilderness is never a place we go looking for. It’s usually a season of the soul that we find ourselves in perhaps wondering how we got there in the first place. We can find ourselves “thrust into it” or “led into it.” I don’t think that it matters really.
For what truly matters is that we are able to accurately discern the purpose for our wilderness season and pray for eyes to see the beauty of it. In my experience, it’s usually in the wilderness that God does His deepest, grandest work. On the other side of wilderness, by virtue of divine design, there always is the Promised Land. However, the degree to which we can sustain the blessing of the Lord in the land that He promises to give us depends on our willingness to let Him do a deep work in us in the wilderness season where He uses time as a tool in His Hands to access us and reveal areas in our lives that are in desperate need of His loving, redemptive touch. The Word of God puts it this way,
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea 2:14, ESV)
It’s in the wilderness that we learn the truth that the wonder of following His breath will always leave us in wonder. He teaches us as our loving Father that man does not live on bread alone, but on every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We start to learn the importance of developing a deeper intimacy with the Lord; a sacred, tender, purely pristine space that lets us come undone in His Presence, with a vulnerability that though seems scary at times, is really what we need to get comfortable with, simply because we know that through it all; we are deeply, deeply loved.
What I’m learning is the truth that the extent to which we allow ourselves to come before the Lord with our most authentic selves, shedding the false weight of pretences and performance, is the extent to which we can experience the depth of His Love; as well as the healing and freedom that it inspires. It’s in the shedding of the shackles of bitterness, unforgiveness, resentment; and the shame that inevitably accompanies this territory threatening to hold us hostage to the facts of what once happened as opposed to the Truth of God’s Word over our lives that declares we are healed, whole and set free by the blood of Jesus, that we start to walk in the freedom that Christ purchased for us at Calvary. Pastor Bill Johnson puts it beautifully when he says that there is always a gap between that which is in our account and that which is in our possession. Standing on the promises of God bridges the gap as we slowly but surely, start to enter into the light of who we really are in Christ.
We really are the righteousness of God in Christ and we really can do all things that we are called to through Christ who strengthens us. We really are much loved children of God whose Father dotes on them and is constantly thinking of them. We really are the temple of the Holy Spirit and greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. We really do have access to a future through Christ that is more glorious than is possible for us to perhaps comprehend.
We really do.
But my experience testifies that for us to come to a place of agreement with the Truth of who we are IN Christ and what we have access to THROUGH Christ, we have to be willing to get alone with the Father. We need to take time to sit at His Feet, like Mary did when Jesus came visiting her. We need to lay all the hurts and offences that we have been carrying in the delicate soil of our hearts as a result of the traumatic experiences in our past, at the feet of Jesus and let Him love us back to life again till we know deep down beyond a shadow of doubt that we really are the absolute delight of His Heart.
The wilderness is where, I believe, the Lord encounters us and declares,
“I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
It’s here that He heals our broken hearts and binds up our wounds. It’s here that He renews our minds and restores our hope. It’s here that He dismantles the lies of the enemy and reveals the Truth that is able to save our souls and set us free. It’s here that He prepares us for what He has prepared for us. It’s here that He does a deep and gentle work in us so that in His perfect timing, He can manifest the fullness of that which He has spoken. It’s here that He refines our character and purifies the motives of our hearts. It’s here that we are met by Love and marked by Love.
Friends, it’s in the wilderness that we learn to lock eyes with the One whose eyes are like flames of fire till we start to truly become like the One we behold. It’s where our hearts begin to burn again with a new found passion and strength that serves as a womb for the rest of our divine destiny to be birthed and eventually, played out.
There is beauty in the wilderness. There is purpose in the pain. There is meaning in the melodrama and there is fruitfulness in the seemingly barren.
But it’s upto us to want to have eyes to see and ears to hear.
“It is when we know the whole truth that we are truly made whole.”
Come 2021, and I have felt welcomed to the Table of Truth. Crossing over from a most unprecedented year that has challenged our capacity to love in the face of offences and hold fast to the Truth in a world ravaged with lies would be futile without taking the time to take inventory of our faith as we transition into a time of healing and wholeness, rebuilding and restoration.
Earlier in the year, I felt led to journal some hard questions in and through my relationship with Christ. Going in, I felt inspired and slowly as I processed my feelings, experiences and revelations with the Lord; He showed up. I wrote out nearly ten pages that day and the Lord gave me so much perspective and clarity on all that I had learned and gained as a result of having gone through the pandemonium and chaos that has defined 2020 that I actually thanked Him for it all.
Maybe what happened was not good. We never have to pretend that it was, but the truth that our God is able to work it out for our good and His glory will always stand the test of time. 2020 included.
So I take heart. As I step into a whole new year, one thing I do know is that I want to be made whole. And the foundation for wholeness is always the Truth. The Bible clearly says, “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32, KJV) But it’s only the truth that we know that is able to set us free. So I choose to give myself over to my Maker to know the hope of the calling I have received.
As I embark upon this journey, my prayer is that I would not be building on a flawed foundation of hurt, brokenness or unhealed pain; but rather let my Maker help me to lay down the structure in mind only brick by brick. I seek to take in a breath of fresh air in His Presence and let His Truth permeate every crevice of my being till it’s revived by His Spirit and I begin to walk in the fullness of the freedom that Jesus died to give me.
We live in a fallen world and though we don’t get to control what happens to us, we do get to choose our response to it. Choose Life, I hear Him say. Peace in the midst of chaos, Hope in the midst of uncertainty, Joy in the midst of despair, Faith in the midst of tribulation and Love in the midst of bitterness.
I give Him permission over my life to factor in firm foundations that are rock solid and sustainable. To take me by the hand and give me eyes to see it all the way He does. To teach me to walk it out only one step at a time, only one day at a time. To help me surrender my striving and learn to rest in Him instead. To enable me to be still and know that He is God. To humble me as I watch Him pour new wine into new wineskin.
Friends, I’m still learning to walk in the Light and if this year calls me to the Table of Truth then I pray that I’ll have the courage to say,
SoulandSubstance27 