I am so overwhelmed with all that is going on in my spiritual life, God is just revealing so much to me about who he is and how to live life for him and like him. He is changing me and I am shaking writing this and on the verge of tears because I just don't know how to even start or what to even say because its hard to write down. I have this bubbly, excited, jittery joy in my stomach but I don't know how to express it. I wanted to come on here and see if I could just try and get some of it down and hopefully, God will sort it all out as I write. I also pray that as I write this, God would plant something in you or teach you something new or that this would encourage you in some way, so I don' know if any of this will make any sense, but I hope God uses what I have and make sense out of my jittery mess.
I think God started this work within me just before Limitless Festival Online, I had started reading my bible a lot more, I had been reading Galatians and doing a few bible plans/devotions on the bible app and I didn't realise at the time what God was actually doing and how much he was teaching me and preparing me for. I did feel little changes within me as I was reading the devotions and Galatians, but like I didn't take any big notice of it.
Anyway, Limitless Festival Online happened, which was amazing by the way, even though it was sad that we couldn't go for real, God still did some amazing stuff and it still felt like Limitless Festival. On the first night, Tim Alford spoke on 1 Thessalonians 4:11 which reads about making it your goal to lead a quiet life. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, don't spend time in the morning with your phone before you spend time with Jesus. Going on your phone first thing in the morning is 1. Putting your phone before God and 2. clogging up your brain with all the stuff of the world leaving only a little bit of space for Jesus and the Spirit when you finally come to the word of God. So, at the end of Tim's preach, he made us promise/declare that, in the morning, we would spend time with God alone before we spend any time with our phone. I managed to do it. I thought it would be harder than it actually was. God gave me an open heart to listen and then carry through what I had learnt, so that morning I read Romans 1, each morning after I have read a chapter of Romans a day and my gosh how God has revealed more and more about himself each time which only makes me want to know more and more.
On holiday I only missed one day of reading Romans, but God did not miss any day of speaking to me. I was on social media one day while on holiday and someone had reposted something on their story. It said something along the line of 'we don't run on feelings, if we only wanted to feel God, then it wouldn't be a relationship, we should want to KNOW God.' This just hit me hard because almost every day I pray that I would be able to feel God and from the moment I read this on Instagram I knew I had been doing my relationship with God wrong. So I started to pray about knowing him in every day, that he would reveal more about who he was and that I wouldn't run on feelings or wanting to feel him, but know him as my father and best friend. Now I know and feel as though I actually have a relationship with him, I know more of who he is and who is to me and my heart is constantly burning for more and more its so overwhelming.
I think instead of only telling you that God has revealed who he is to me, I thought I'd tell you and hopefully, he will reveal himself to you too.
Who is God? He is the Holy one who is so much higher than us. He sits in his throne in Heaven that is higher than space and higher than the space of space. He knows everything, he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Time is literally in his hands, beginning to the end and everything in-between. He holds the plans for your life and says that they are so so good.
God loves us, me, you more than everything on this earth. He loves you so much that he loved you while we were still, STILL, sinners. He sent his son, his only son to die for you so that you could be close to him and be called his daughter and son just as Jesus is. Through Jesus, we find the love that God has for us. Through Jesus, we are brought closer to the one in Heaven who made us. Who are we to say that we are greater than the one who literally formed us in his hands. There is a verse in Romans 9 that says "Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it "Why have you made me like this?" When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn't he have the right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those whom his anger falls." - Who are we?? Who are we to question God's righteousness? To question his ways? There is another verse in Romans 11 that I love which says " Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!"
Through my life I know God's ways have never failed, so I do not question them for God is faithful, He is the only one who will be faithful to you your whole life. Others will fade in and out, but remains the same and always faithful. Through the times I was fading in and out of my relationship with Christ, he never ever left me for he promises to always be with us!! He is the keeper of promises, he will never leave you, the bible says "Do not be afraid" May your confidence and hope be in the one who will never leave.
Who is God? He is the one and only, he is the king of the throne, he is my everything, he is 3 in one, he is father, spirit and son. He is the one who deserves the glory, who deserves the ones he created, who deserves all of us, even if we have nothing, he just wants us. He loves you as you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay as you are.
God is so much more than what I have said and there are things he has shown me about himself that I don't know how to put in words. 1 John 2:6 was a daily verse that came up on the bible app and it reads "Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did." If I don't try to live like Jesus then how can I say that I live in God. Jesus was the one who lived on earth and was fully living in God (I mean he actually was God, but he still lived in God and in Spirit and in truth). Jesus lived always pouring out his love, always sitting with the outcasts, always teaching about who God is, and always ready to listen, heal, sit, speak, act, pray, etc. He lived in fellowship with others, but still found time to go and live a quiet life, sneaking up a hill to pray to God his father, to spend time with him.
I want to live like Jesus, I want to be a servant of God, ready to go when he tells me, ready to love and have fellowship with others, ready to answer with God's word to the questions people ask, but also ready to draw back and go find time to strengthen my own relationship with God as well as helping others with theirs. I hope and pray that with every passing moment God is making me more like Jesus, because it is through Jesus that I find God and without God I am nothing, without God, I wouldn't be on this beautiful earth he created.
Some of the things God has been teaching me about myself is that I am not always very good at endurance, I'm not always very good at spending time with people and I'm not very good at being humble. With endurance, it's more to do with my spiritual endurance, I can be faithful to God for a while, but then suddenly one day I'll pick up my phone before reading the word and then I'll do it the next day and then the next and suddenly I'm back where I began, begging on my knees for God to forgive me and having to build my relationship up with him all over again. For me to read Romans every day has really been an endurance test for me, but the more I've been reading it, the more I've wanted to read it, God has been working in me and making me strong, I still feel myself wanting to slip out of God's grasp sometimes, but God's hold on me is so strong now that I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.
Spending time with people is another thing I struggle at, not necessarily the physically being and interaction with people, I love people, I'm an extravert. But, when I've just spent time with God and I'm full of the spirit, or it's a time when I want to be alone to spend time with Jesus, I don't want anyone around, I don't want to be near people and I want everyone to be quiet so that I can do the things I want to do. This is just a horrible attitude, and I end up snapping at people and being angry at them for no reason and that it is like the opposite of what Jesus would do. After Jesus had had his quiet time with God he would go to the places that need him and spirit the most, he wouldn't shoo people away because he doesn't want their negativity to disrupt him. No, he would speak and teach into the places and people who lack love and spirit and God. So as I learn to live more like Jesus, he is teaching me how to love and enjoy the times when I'm around people. He is teaching me how to spread love and spend time in fellowship. The other day I had just made myself a coffee and I went into the living room, there was no one else in there, so I decide I'll spend a few moments in the quiet listening to God, but God's voice didn't speak in the quiet but in the laughter of my family who slowly walked into the living room one by one. To start with when my younger brothers came in I was a bit annoyed and almost left the room to go find another quiet space, but I heard God say to me to stay because fellowship and family and loving one another is important too. God doesn't only speak when we're alone, but he speaks when we are with the ones who also have a heart for the glory of God.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not a big-headed, snotty person who thinks herself better than anyone else, but sometimes my thoughts get the better of me and when I spend lots of time with God and see him changing me, I start to have these tiny whispers of thoughts that make me think I know better than a family member. For example, I'll see one of them shout at another when they could have just said the thing without shouting or they'll just be really rude for no apparent reason and I will want to mention the fact that they aren't being like Jesus, they could have said it with more kindness and love, or I'll want to quote a bible verse or something. Now, they perhaps were being rude and not like Jesus, but I am not perfect either. I can be completely rude and answer back and be unkind and unloving to my family quite often, so who am I, a sinner just like them, to tell them they could have done that thing differently, it is God that must speak through me, through my actions and I hope as I learn to love as God helps me remove the speck from my own eye that then he would help me to help others to remove the plank from their eye. Another thing about humility is that I am not very good at serving others. As God teaches me to be humble, he is teaching me to serve. Jesus lived his life as a servant of God and a servant of all, always serving others. If I want to live like Jesus I must do the same.
Matthew 23:11 "The Greatest among you must be a servant"
Romans 9:16 "So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it." Romans 10:18 "But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just a branch, not the root"
Romans 12:10-11 Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically."
I pray that each day God would humble me and give me opportunities to serve others. I don't ever want to think of myself first because God should always come first and others second. The most important command is to love others, if I am not serving or loving others as I love myself then what am I doing? I am not doing what God called me to do.
I've only got 4 more chapters of Romans left, but I pray that my burning for more of God's word would not stop at Romans, but would take me to whatever God needs me to read and hear next. I am so excited for all these new chapters in my life, I feel God and I know God so much more than I ever have before, my fire for him is so much brighter than before and I am so excited for where he will take me next.
The prayer that is on my heart is just that I would continue to go deeper with God, deeper into him and deeper into the dark places that need his light. I want and need the Holy Spirit to guide me and take control every day because I couldn't do any of this without him, without him I am week. I want to love more like Jesus and pray that God would make me more like him every day. Each morning before I read the word I surrender to the spirit because it is by spirit and truth that I live. Today I read Romans 12 and in verse 1 it says this "And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice - the kind that he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him." My whole life I have only ever longed to live in a place of constant worship and by surrendering my soul, mind, and body to God and his Holy Spirit, I am doing that very thing.
I pray that in reading my little testimony of what God is teaching me and showing me that you would be encouraged, humbled, blessed; that you would feel loved and that there is hope in the world still. There is so much more I could say about God, but for now I pray that this would do.
There are a few things that have helped me to stay on the path that I am now and that God has been speaking through, so if you need help to reconnect or know more of Jesus then I encourage you to check these out.
- FarAwayDistance Youtube channel
- The Harvest - her music is just my favourite to listen to at the moment, it really helps me to connect with God
- YouVersion Bible App - there are so many incredible bible plans and devotions that God has spoken to me through, it has also really helped me read my bible more.
BeeBee
xxx
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