Come.

“Come to Me.”

The Lord laid this verse on my heart a while back. Clearly, I was tired and a bit too inundated with the cares of this world to even admit my need of rest. Till He spoke, and in His relentlessness, kept on orchestrating my steps in a manner that there was scarcely a day when I wouldn’t cross paths with this precious verse in some form or the other,

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV)

It was perhaps the Sunday before this past one that I came back from my Church service, too exhausted to even pray. However, I mumbled to Him what I could, and in His Mercy, He straight away put me to sleep. Having spent the whole day, resting and sleeping, I realized that my Father knows what I need even before I recognize it, let alone articulate it. He is deeply engaged with my story and journey in Him, and would find multiple ways to get across to me, till it finally strikes a chord. He had been telling me to rest, and when I finally fell asleep that Sunday in the warmth of His embrace, I woke up refreshed with a peace that He knows what He is doing. Since He does, I can rest.

Scripture has so many levels of revelation to it that we will be unpacking it forever. Yesterday, The Lord put me through something that gave me more insight into this exquisite verse.

How many of us can confess of times where instead of going to The Only One who can give us the wisdom we need to navigate that which we are confronting; we stubbornly try to do it in the strength of our limited wisdom. I candidly confess of trying something like this yesterday, till I finally felt His nudge to ask The Holy Spirit. I humbled myself all over again, and invited The Holy Spirit in. Believe it or not, in perhaps less than two minutes, The Lord gave me the direction I was looking for; but more than that, He gave the confidence that with my spirit tethered to His, I can never be lost.

“Come to me.”

My experience has taught me that Jesus invites us to come to Him for both, rest and revelation. It is in the place of resting in Him that our spirits become quiet before God, allowing Him to break in and then break out. Rest gives us focus, alignment and clarity. Rest allows us to simply let ourselves be, allowing His Presence to refresh us and renew our spirit man. Clearly, rest is a weapon.

The busyness of life suggests otherwise, but with the strength of The Holy Spirit, we can become empowered to even move through times of duress and distress from a place of peace and rest. Paradoxically, it is our revelation that enables us to enter into the rest of God. Here, I am talking about the faith-rest life of a believer, who takes God at His Word, embarks upon the process towards the promise with a child like trust that brings about a profound soulful rest, thereby empowering us to have the endurance, strength and stamina needed as we travel towards the fulfillment of the promise, which when released from The Mouth of The Lord, is a guaranteed outcome.

When something is guaranteed in our lives, then we can have the rest in our souls that comes from knowing The Character of Our Great God. He is a Faithful Father who never fails, an Invincible King who knows no defeat, a Warrior King who stands victorious forever. He remains unchanging and loves us too much to let us down. He may have a process entailed because that is His primary purpose: to have time and space with us where He reveals Himself in ways that leave us changed and transformed from one degree of glory to another. The promise will manifest in time, the process is designed to leave us richer : richer in rest and richer in revelation.

So, as I bring this post to a gentle close, the only words that seem to be reverberating in my spirit are those of our precious Savior,

“Come to Me.”

It’s time to go, friends!


Thank you, friends❤️

Taking a moment in time to pause and say thank you to each one of you blessed friends who have ever taken the time to read a post, send an encouragement or at times, even prayer .. I am most delighted to see that as surely as God blesses me with His Words of love, life and liberty; He seems to be having a way to get across to each and every one of His Sons and Daughters in order that we may shine our light in the tiny corners of the world we find ourselves in, all because we seek to point to The Light without whom none of this would be possible, but simply because He chose to shine, perhaps we can too☀️Hallelujah 🙌🏻

A victorious hybrid.

“Humility is freedom and surrender is strength.”

When we follow Jesus, we recognize we are following The One who humbled Himself so much that He became obedient even to the point of death, and that too, death on The Cross. That humble act of obedience is the very essence of what we mean by the crucifixion of the flesh as believers in Christ. Its a gradual process that helps us grow into a more authentic version of ourselves. It is a journey where we begin to see for ourselves that perhaps compassion really is a better choice than anger, asking for forgiveness when necessary is better than having to defend oneself or blame others, sowing in peace is better than striving in flesh, giving grace is better than harboring grudges, trusting the purposes of God is better than having it our way; and as I write, the eternal Words of Jesus come to mind,

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Matthew 16:26,NIV)

Jesus is the Lover of our souls and died for it. He died for our freedom in order that we may learn to live on Earth as He did. It is the trenches of unforgiveness, bitterness, shame, negativity, rebellion that holds us in shackles, when Christ came to set the captives free – free in our hearts, minds and souls, and therefore, in life.

The more I live, the more I am aware that there are times when we have to fight for this freedom and make conscious choices to become the very embodiment of grace, mercy, gentleness, kindness and love in a world that more often than not, is anything but. Complaining about our circumstances fetches little, but taking them to The Only One who can do something about them, is where we learn to walk in victory. This requires a spiritual posture of humility before The Lord where we allow ourselves to come undone in The Presence of Him who looks at us when complete compassion and perfect love. He already knows our state, and is waiting with open arms to take us into the warmth of His Embrace in order that we may leave healed, restored, revived, renewed and set free.

This, to me, represents a prolific picture of the relationship between our posture of humility before The One who is Victorious in order that we may walk in His Freedom, freedom FROM the shackles of shame, regret, brokenness and bitterness; and INTO the wide, open meadows of faith, hope, love, peace, rest and trust. This is a freedom that we experience deep within our souls as we surrender to the Love of The Father. This surrender is not a sign of weakness or defeat, but of strength and victory for The One we are surrendering to is already victorious. Death could not hold hold Him, for He rose again with the keys to our freedom. However, this freedom is a gift from God that we walk in everyday, while simultaneously it is also a decision we make to walk in the fullness of every single day. He has set our souls free and nothing can change that, but it is also our responsibility to make wise choices that will help nourish the spiritual condition of our souls. Slowly friends, even I am learning the paradox of God.

In short, humility is a posture of strength that causes us to surrender to the very embodiment of Victory, Jesus. Humility says, “not my will, but yours.” Humility says, “I’m only a tiny drop in the ocean, yet so precious that You died for me.” Humility says, “now that I am more mature than I was, I feel like a child who knows nothing, all over again.” Humility says, “I can’t Lord, but You can.” Humility says, “I surrender all, Lord.”

And THAT surrender, friends, is what takes us from strength to strength and glory to glory. That surrender is opening our hearts to God in a fresh, new way that allows His Love and Light to break in and break out. That surrender is trusting God with every detail of our lives and allowing His Spirit to guide us forth. That surrender keeps us in sync with His leading in every season of our souls. That surrender reintroduces us to the power of walking in the Love of God as we navigate our journey here on Earth. That surrender empowers the crucifixion of the flesh paving the way to a resurrection of the spirit, a process that not only sees us walking in the Word of God, but in the ways of God.

Suffice to say, humility is freedom for it is the very point where our spirit is empowered to surrender to the power of The One who though reigns as an Eternal, Everlasting God; was humble enough to descend from Eternity to Earth simply because He is the kind who leaves the ninety nine to find the one, every single time; a detail that wins my heart over, every single time.

So, I humble myself today before Him and surrender all that He has given me in order that He may breathe on it afresh, till His fire falls on my heart and paves the way for the next move of His Holy Spirit.

I pray you would do the same.

Amen.

Knowing Him.

“Knowing You is my strength.”

I thank The Lord that I know Him. In a world rife with brokenness and chaos, I am just thankful that I know Him. Somewhere, I have a feeling that you do too.

In my journey thus far, Immanuel has never failed me. He knew me before I did and now that I do, I seek to know Him more. I understand that the strength of our journey lies in the depths of our intimacy with Him. It is in that sacred, “soul to Spirit” space that has been bought by His Blood and sealed with The Holy Spirit, that I find Him and begin to find myself too. It’s a pristine journey that is new every morning, simply because I need to receive every morning – fresh mercies, renewed strength, daily sufficient grace. I need Him to wash me with tidal waves of His Love every single day. I need Him to remind me of who He is to me and the Truth that He is the same; yesterday, today and forevermore. Tethered to that Truth is the essence of true confidence to me.

Through the varied seasons of my life, I have encountered Immanuel as a Constant who through the valleys and mountains, remains steadfast in His Love and Faithfulness. I have seen both, the ups and downs of life and remained sensitive to the truth that it has always been the Hand of The Lord at work. He sends us as sheep among the wolves because He is confident in His Character towards us, and that confidence inspires mine too. He knows what He has put deep down on the inside of us, and every trial is sent to simply remind us that He is not testing us to see if we can withstand or not, because He knows that we can. It is simply we who need to know, and to know beyond a shadow of doubt that we can. Therein lies the strength of our intimacy with Him, which in turn strengthens our experience of life itself.

The Lord has even made a promise to us. He says that in this life, we will have tribulation, but we can take heart in The Lordship of Him who has overcome the world, and through all that we face, is teaching us to overcome as well. He calls us mighty warriors who know how to stand on the battlefield of life simply because in His mercy and majesty, He has first lavished us with His Love which is the very thing that gives us the capacity to stand. In short, the secret to our strength lies in the depths of His Love towards us.

In the days we find ourselves in, I feel it is important to know who The Lord is to us, personally. For me, He has revealed Himself in ways beyond articulation. I am certain that perhaps this is your testimony too. He has revealed Himself as an Invincible King and a Faithful Friend, all at the same time. He has met me at my worst and loved me into wholeness, every single time. Pardon me for repeating myself, but I think it imperative to reiterate that He is the same; yesterday, today and forever. In that Truth, my soul finds rest.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30,NIV)

The Lord will never put more on us than we can bear, and His Grace is sufficient in every circumstance of life. When we feel burdened by the cares of this life, I hope and pray that we remember The Heart of Our King who warmly invites us to lay our burdens at His Feet and our ears next to His Bosom, for it is His Words of loving kindness which are able to revive our souls and restrengthen us in a way that leaves us better than we were before. It is our dependency on The Holy Spirit; our Friend, Counselor and Comforter that becomes our confidence. It is our intimacy with The Father that makes Him our Greatest Confidante.

Knowing Him as The Shepherd who illuminates our path, step by step is a journey that we are privileged to walk. There is much ahead that He has in store for us, but as we walk, we begin to know The One who prepares us for what He has prepared for us. After all, He will never put on us more than we can bear, even if it is in the guise of a blessing, for a blessing given prematurely can become a burden, and a burden cast at His Feet can become a blessing.

As I hasten to a close, I will share an exhortation from The Lord that beckons us to draw closer and go deeper in our walk with Him.

“Oh, that we might know the LORD! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.” (Hosea 6:3,NLT)

Friends, He is Faithful to deliver, save, heal and redeem. There is nothing that He cannot do, but the more we know Him, the more we will know The Truth that sets us free.

Amen.



It’s begun :)

Dear Heavenly Father,

The Jewish New Year just about rolled in, and we are so excited to see all that You have in store for each and every one of us. We thank You for cultivating us in Your Love the past year, and developing us in ways that have left us dumbfounded. Truly, Your thoughts and ways are higher than ours, and we are grateful for that. So, in the same breath Father, we ask You to go ahead of us and illuminate our path. Guide us, guard us, instruct us, counsel us and watch over us; as Your Word promises. Keep us close to Your Bosom in order that we may hear Your Words of loving kindness that bring healing to our soul and strength to our bones. We pray Father, that the promises You have given us from Your Word will begin to see visible manifestations in this new era, that You will bestow upon us signs, wonders and miracles from The Heavens above as a constant source of encouragement as we tread uncharted territory simply because we trust in Our Father who will never fail us nor forsake us, but instead promises to fortify, strengthen and uphold us. We pray that the coming year would be drenched with Your supernatural favor and goodness. We Thank You for being our Constant One, Father and pray that as we continue to yield ourselves to Your Careful Hand, You will make us into the vessels that will spread the Love and Light that we have so freely received from You wherever we go. We Thank You for all that You have promised to bring to pass in our lives and ask You to grace us with the patience, love, peace and joy in our souls as we continue to travel with You into destinations yet unknown. We love You, Lord!

In Jesus’ Mighty Name,

Amen!