"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)
“The Son of God lays down his privileges, wraps himself in flesh and comes as a babe in a manger.”
The world awaited a Savior. Many prophecies and 400 years later, there was still no answer.
But then, He came.
He did not come as one would expect. No. Not with pomp and show, but rather with a humility and fragility that almost takes us by surprise.
The King of glory redeines and revolutionizes our concept of ‘Kingship’ by authenticating it through ‘Servanthood’ and translating this unique hybrid into the language, the identity and reality of “Sonship.”
Friends, we have a Savior in Jesus because we need relationship with the Father. We are not orphans or strangers with respect to the Father, but rather closely held, delightfully known and tenderly loved Children of the most high God who is Perfect in His heart towards us, and it was to reveal the height, the depth, the length, the width of this magnanimous heart that Jesus came.
Not as a military dictator – because that’s not who the Father is. But rather as a helpless babe in a manger – to identify with us so that we could identify with Him, for compassion is who the Father truly is.
Slowly growing up in wisdom and stature, the Son of God modelled for us the “Perfect Servant-King.” And the Bible tells me that as He is, so are we in this world.
I don’t know what your story is, friend. But mine has seen me discovering the truth of my identity as a Daughter of the King of kings and then also the beauty of my role through my relationship with the Father in the earth. What that means every single day is the hope that I awaken with and awaken to every single day.
So for the string of days leading upto Christmas beginning with Advent, I feel like we have a fresh invitation & opportunity from the Lord to seek to know Him – as a Father so that we can be known as much loved Children.
There is no fear in love, but Perfect Love casts out all fear. In a day and age where there is so much temptation to live in fear, anxiety or dread; I’d rather be defined by the Love of my Father and let His Love transform the story of my life.
Because He came, I’m going.
Straight into the arms of my Father. For who was once a helpless babe in a manger is now the Risen King of glory who is the Savior of the world, but also my personal, perfect, intimately connected and hugely involved – “Father.”
In response, its only natural to want to press in to know Christ this Christmas, friend.
So let’s do that!
He is our Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace.
To discover Him is to unwrap the gift of Christmas.
🎁
So as I knit my heart with yours, I hope and pray that the winter snow kisses you afresh and awakens you to the desire of the Father.
For to make you known to Him was also why Jesus came, and I’m guessing we’re going to make it count this season.
Cheerio!
🎄☃️🎅🏻🌲❄
“What is the value of your soul to God? Could your worth be defined by any amount of money? God doesn’t abandon or forget even the small sparrow he has made. How then could he forget or abandon you? What about the seemingly minor issues of your life? Do they matter to God? Of course they do! So you never need to worry, for you are more valuable to God than anything else in this world.”
(Luke 12:6-7, TPT)
Friends, today as I sat with Jesus over this passage of Scripture in my ‘Lectio Divina’ time (btw, if you have not yet been introduced to this practice, I highly recommend you googling some information on it, you won’t regret it, I promise!) I felt a tender, gentle reminder from Abba’s heart to soak in the Truth that I am hugely valued and eternally worthy in His sight. He looks at me with the deepest affection in His heart, a huge smile on His lips and a pure delight in His eyes.
Hmnn…
So I have made up my mind.
That that’s really the only thing that is going to define me.
The Love of my Father, my Heavenly Dad.
❤
A love so deep, profound and faithful that it will never leave me nor forsake me. It will never abandon me. It promises to be eternally true to me –
To be with me, to fight for me, to make a way for me.
Always and forever.
And should you let me speak some Truth over you today, He is the same for you too.
A doting, hands-on Father who is intimately involved in the details of your life.
You are His child, beloved – sought after, precious, valued, cared for, wanted, needed, esteemed, honored, fought for.
And though man may fail you, Jesus never will.
He calls you beautiful, bold, fearless, wise, strong, courageous.
He enfolds you within His loving embrace and calls you His own – His image bearer in the earth and His chosen one.
And no.
We don’t deserve it. We couldn’t have earned it.
But it is a grace-gift and the Bible says that Abba gives good gifts to His children.
🎁
So I’m learning to receive this uncomon grace, friend in a way so free and trusting that it lets my Heavenly Dad know –
“I love you right back, Abba. I love you right back.”
👑
These two precious snails yesterday taught me to trust the timing of God, friends.
For a few days now on this side of the globe (I live in India!), we have been sitting in the bliss of some very welcome monsoon rains. The trees have been washed and cleansed, the soil rendered moist, and the snails, loose.
So I took a long stroll hand-in-hand with Jesus last evening. A newfound leap in my step betrayed my joy with the kindest intentions. And with each step forward, my eyes started growing wide with wonder.
I began to experience the awe of God in a fresh new way.
In a way that showed me where a few days back, we were primarily held hostage indoors due to the intense heat and humidity, we were now experiencing such joy and bliss alongwith the freedom to be able to truly enjoy the beauty and splendour of creation, and the difference between the two scenarios was, what we call, a shift in seasons.
“He changes the times and seasons; He removes kings and establishes them.”
(Daniel 2:21)
Candid confession time, friends.
As a believer, I honestly struggle and wrestle with God to be able to accurately discern the times and seasons that I orbit in and out of. He is faithful, I am happy to testify, and lets me in when I seek Him. So it was this time too.
Transition change.
A season of dryness morphing into showers of blessing.
Naturally.
And I am beginning to suspect even spiritually.
Ok.
Let’s get back to the snails.
With their home on their backs, these two precious snails were positioned right next to one another when I, still within my apartment’s complex, received a gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit.
“Let’s take a few steps out.”
Yes, Sir.
So off I went following His leading. And just a couple of steps through the gate of my building was awaiting me this exquisite sight.
Two precious snails carefully aligned next to one another. Five minutes here and two minutes there – I would have missed it! For one champion was headed up north, while the other downtown. Different destinations assigned to each comrade, yet carefully juxtaposed with one another in this one moment of time.
Divine timing .
Isn’t it amazing friends?
Isn’t it amazing how our Heavenly Father is so intimately involved with us, even in the smallest details of our lives?
Helps me to know that He never misses a thing.
He is present. He is intimate. He cares.
He cares about His Beloved finding these two precious snails forming a yin-yang all their own to let me know that even my seconds are carefully timed so that whatever it is that He has for me, never misses me.
All we need to do is pay attention, friends and there are tiny miracles all around us.
Including what we call, a shift in seasons.
Yes, even spiritually.
With a timely downpour washing clean both, creation and the children of God; I felt a deeper stirring in my soul, and as I continue to write, it nags me all the way into faith for more.
For more of the awe of God.
The God who changes times and seasons, translating a dry and arid time into a season of fresh outpouring, blessing and favour; is the One I am wanting the more of.
For being in awe of Him, captivated by His majesty serves to heal my heart and reignite hope.
Hope for a season that brings us into a fuller manifestation of all that He has in His heart for us is what I am beginning to let myself have faith for.
So as I was soaking in the Word today friends, I found myself praying and prophesying some tender and potent truths over myself in a spontaneous outburst of Psalm 89.
I felt it on my heart to share with you too what I believe He has released, so that together we will walk into a bountiful future.
A future that is full of the bounty of heaven, both spiritually and naturally.
Paving the way forward, I am sharing now a benediction for Showers of Blessings based on the Promise of God from Psalm 89, The Passion Translation. I encourage you to personalise Scripture and confess it over your life as the very heart and words of Father God concerning you.
Personally.
Friend, the Lord loves intimacy in a way that is up, close and personal; dares vulnerability and demonstrates trust.
So let’s go.
This is what I believe Father God says to you,
“I have chosen you, ____________________ ,
Beloved Child of God,
as my loving servant and exalted you.
I have anointed you with the oil of my holiness.
I will be strength to you and I will give you my grace to sustain you no matter what comes.
None of your enemies will get the best of you
nor will the wicked one overpower you.
For I will crush your every adversary
and do away with all who hate you.
Because I love you and treasure you
my faithfulness will always protect you.
I will place my great favor upon you
and I will cause your power and fame to increase.
I will set your hand over the sea
and your right hand over the rivers.
And you will come before me, saying,
‘You truly are my Father, my only God, and my strong deliverer!’
… This covenant will be an unbreakable promise that I have established for all time.”
Says the Lord.
In my experience friends, the best way to respond to God when He gives us a promise from His heart is to pray in alignment so that we can see the manifestation activated and fulfilled.
King David did this, Scripture tells us when God gave him a promise that his son would be the one to build the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem and that David’s dynasty would indeed be established.
I’m guessing we can too.
Join me friend, won’t you?
“Dear Heavenly Father,
I am so thankful that you love me and I want you to know that I love you too. I thank you that you have given me access to some truly precious and great promises concerning my Identity, sustenance, protection, vindication and favour. I receive them with praise and ask that you will activate all that is needed in the unseen realm so that the seasons up ahead will testify to Your Faithfulness in my life as Your beloved child. I thank You that He who promised is Faithful and I wait in confident expectation to watch You move. Keep me close, Father and give me eyes to see and ears to hear so that I may know you deeper still.
In the Beautiful Name of Jesus,
I pray,
Amen.”
Let the seasons change.
I’ve noticed one thing about pain. It compels us to misunderstand the nature and character of God.
Much like Eve.
Cut to the chase, here goes.
The Bible tells us that God told Eve she was free to eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Why did He do that?
I believe that God was actually protecting her freedom and that of man, because we were perhaps never designed to know any evil. Yet, in the face of an inadequate understanding of God’s true nature, Eve sinned.
To me friends, it is not so much the sin that led her to partake of the forbidden fruit that matters, as much as it is what led her to.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'”
(Genesis 3:1)
For the crafty serpent to come in and sow doubt in Eve’s mind with irrelevant questions like, “Did God really say?” and have her succumb to the temptation of sin so easily, I do feel that somewhere Eve did not know the nature and character of her God well enough to begin with.
Neither did I.
But when you know better, you do better.
I am so glad, friends that we serve a God who forgives, redeems and makes all things new.
Jesus does not sit on the Throne with a stock of all our sin. He already dealt with that on the Cross.
He sits on the Throne and fights for us instead.
Our God is with us. He is for us. And He fights for us.
The Good News here is that He does not fight for victory, He fights from it.
Talking of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word of God says:
“Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his!”
(Colossians 2:15, TPT)
In short?
Having defeated and disarmed the powers of darkness, Jesus reigns.
And in Him, we do too.
With absolute victory over sin, sickness and death; we are called to co-reign with Christ.
So in the face of so much adversity, persecution and trauma; I am learning to be very intentional about reminding myself of some truths that though appear basic, are the very cornerstone of our faith.
And what I am realizing is that though in Christ, we do have victory over sin, sickness and death; we are not exempt from pain and suffering.
We are in the world, but not of it.
The world we live in friends, is lost and broken. So are the people that constitute it.
So when God called us to fight the good fight of faith, He made it abundantly clear that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against the forces of darkness for which we have absolute triumph through Christ.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
(Ephesians 6:12)
Yes and Amen.
So it naturally follows that our enemy is not our parent, our sibling or our next door neighbour.
Our enemy is the devil, Satan. And the Good News is that he is defeated.
Yes.
The same crafty serpent that once deceived Eve and has continued in his attempts till date, is forever defeated.
How?
"By the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony."
(Revelation 12:11)
But here is the catch.
The degree to which we seek to know the Lord is the degree to which we will be abe to walk conscious of this reality, on an everyday basis.
Pain and suffering always threaten to numb or dim our consciousness of the victory we have through Christ. So it becomes important that we learn to process it in a healthy way.
In a way that is worthy of us.
For our perspective during such times, is the difference between life and death.
We will either succumb to the despair and hopelessness that our enemy, Satan would love for us.
OR.
Or we can choose to run to Jesus.
Run to Him for the healing we need in our souls and the perspective we need in our thought process.
Co-operating with the reality that God is trying to cultivate in us during such times friends, is key.
Are we trying to avenge ourselves, or are we letting Him avenge us?
Are we wasting precious emotional resources on harbouring bitterness and resentment, or are we learning to forgive, let go and trust God?
Are we walking in anxiety and dread, or in the fullness of the peace and power that the Lord died for us to receive?
The difference between the two sets of scenarious presented here is the difference between being a victim of our circumstances or rising above them as more than conquerors through Christ.
God often says to us,
Choose life.
Therefore, I choose to intentionally put Christ first. To surrender my will to be aligned with His and I find that the more I do so, the more I get to know the Lord.
Friends, as I am learning to do just what He says, I have found myself face-to-face with one beautiful yet startling reality,
“I may know Jesus fairly well, but I don’t know Him well enough.”
I really don’t.
I may know Him well enough to know that He is fully and completely worthy of my faith and trust, but I don’t know Him well enough to know just how much He does honour child-like trust and mustard-seed faith.
I may know Him well enough to know that He is perfect in love and perfect in wisdom, but I don’t know Him well enough to know the full extent of all that He really is, all that He is capable of doing and all that which He will do.
I may know Him well enough to know that He is my best friend and my glorious king, but I don’t know Him well enough to know His next move on my behalf.
I may know Him well enough to know that He will never leave me nor forsake me, but I don’t know Him well enough to know just how very faithful and relentless His pursuit of me, in reality, is.
I may know Him well enough to know that He is sovereign and has the final say in all matters that concern us, but I don’t know Him well enough to know just how He will bend the rules of the game as we journey on.
I may know Him well enough to know that He is good, He does good and He works all things together for good in conformity with the counsel of His will, but I don’t know Him well enough to know just how He will manifest this Romans 8:28 promise again in my life circumstances.
I know Him fairly well, friends. But I don’t know Him well enough.
Fairly well to know Him as a beloved father, a heavenly saviour and a dreadful champion of my cause; but not well enough to know just what that may mean in its entirety as my destiny unfolds.
But I take heart in what I do know.
For what I do know is that with each day that unfolds, I can seek to know Him more.
Filled with the awe and wonder of His majesty, His mercy and His might.
And somewhere I suspect that the same holds true for you too, my friend.
So together?
Let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.
Let Love happen.
💖
Dear Beloved,
You are an intricate part of me that I wove into being even before I laid the foundations of the Earth. I think about you all the time, and am always working on your behalf. I understand that the circumstances of this life may want you to believe otherwise, but the Truth is that even circumstances are only tools in my Hands to invite you to come closer and go deeper. As you learn to abide in My Love, you will find yourself living above the state that is simply circumstantial, and with one touch of Heaven, susceptible to easily crumble so it can be raised up into the newness and wholeness that was always my original design and intention towards you, My Child.
I am Love, and therefore you are My Beloved. I loved you at your worst, and your best will not move me either. So, I invite you to lay down the burden of performance and simply rest in me. I will lead you beside quiet waters where you will find a refreshment of your spirit and a renewal of your soul. In stillness, you will hear my beautiful voice again and the sound of Love resonating with your spirit will cause to find the strength you need to soar again. You will mount up on wings as eagles, for that is the life I have planned for you.
As you come and surrender to me the cares that try and weigh you down, I will fill you with a peace that surpasses understanding. Your heart in alignment with mine, and your steps in sync with mine will pave the way for a walk with me that will leave you in astonishment, wonder and awe. I will sensitize you to the beauty of the gifts I have already surrounded you with and you will marvel with gratitude. Your rejoicing in the simple things of life will cause a softness in your heart that will allow me to pour even more of My Love into you.
It is My Joy as Your Father to restore and redeem every part of your life as you come to me. I will recreate all things as though nothing was lost and fill you with a joy that comes from another world. You will morph into someone who is content in all circumstances because you have encountered The One who transcends all circumstances. Your joy in knowing me will surpass any challenge that seems to dim your view and passion for life.
I will give you a new perspective on the times and seasons that you find yourself in. This perspective shall flow from The Throne Room of Grace and the very things that daunted you, will blossom into opportunities for you to transform into a more loving, kind, bold and courageous version of yourself. You will no longer run away from what seems to be unknown, but rather embrace the tide of the unknown as you trust in Me to teach you how to surf through it all.
So, even though you do not know what the future holds, rest in the knowledge and the faithfulness of The One who holds it. I have engraved your name on the palm of My Hand and the thoughts that I have towards you are to prosper you and bless you with a confident hope for the future. Walk with me, Beloved and I will show you the way.
Love you more than most,
Your Heavenly Father.
SoulandSubstance27 