I came to God, to ask Him to teach me, and show me any error in my heart or mind, about holiness. What He taught me was totally unexpected, and really hit a deep place in my heart.  It began with God touching me, and my angry reaction.  I dont always react like that, but I have noticed it happen quite a lot, and have never known why.  So, anyway, I stayed put purely through determination, and began to ask God what on earth is the problem, and what’s it got to do with holiness? We made painfully slow progress, like two friends trying to make up after a terrible argument:  ’I'm angry with you.’ ‘I know you are, but why?’  ‘Cos your horrid’. That sort of thing.  So, here comes the lesson that God taught me about holiness.  It started in Genesis 4:6-7, ‘Why are you so angry?  the Lord asked Cain.  Why do you look so dejected?  You will be accepted if you do what is right.’  Now, I’ll have to explain a little bit of the background here. You see, my relationship with God was wonderful, intimate and deep, until a point came when everything in my life went wrong.  I went through a valley, and it was a dark valley that seemed to go on forever.  In the first 3 or 4 months of this period, God suddenly withdrew from me, and I could not understand.  Why would God leave me when things got bad?  That was the worst part of the whole thing, and was the cause of my anger towards Him.  I was pondering all this when I took a drink of water that I had brought with me from home.  It tasted completely foul. I didn’t realise Evian could go off, but it can.  It was rancid, disgusting, and left the most foul after-taste in my mouth, which no amount of chocolate could overcome.  I was sat there on the floor with this grimace on my face wanting to spit my tongue out, when God began to speak to me about my false view of holiness.  When I got saved, I came to God on the basis of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for me. I came to Him broken, humble and eternally grateful.  However, when things got bad and I began to go through some incredibly hard and painful times, I began to bring to God my own sacrifice of pain and suffering, instead of the sacrifice of Jesus.  I imagine the thoughts of my heart went something like this, ‘Oh Lord, look at how I’m suffering for you.  If I didn’t love you so much I would never endure this.  I’m in such pain and its all for you.’  Now, my water looked pure, fresh and clear, but it tasted like sick, and once i’d drank from it I wanted to put it as far away from me as possible.  My own sacrifice of suffering for God is exactly the same.  It looks pious, and holy, but when God drinks of it He finds that it tastes foul, and so puts it as far away from Him as possible.  This was Cain’s problem too.  He came to God with his own sacrifice (look how hard I’ve worked for you.  See how I’ve been slaving away in the fields, and its all for you) instead of the sacrifice provided for him by God.  So, God told me to go and pour my foul water down the sink, and to repent for thinking that my sufferings were anything at all.  Only the sufferings of Jesus Christ are worthy before God and can bring me into the place of holiness, the Presence of God.

 Over the last couple of weeks, I felt a dissatisfaction in my spirit and I couldn’t work out what it was. I also felt distant from God but couldn’t work out what was wrong as I had not made a decision to step away from God. He just felt suddenly far away although when I looked back over the last couple of weeks, it seemed more like a gradual withdrawal.I was also becoming dissatisfied with the Bible. I Should probably qualify that. Not dissatisfied with the Word of God, His word sustains us but I was dissatisfied with my understanding and reading of it. I felt like whenever I put aside time for God, to pray and read the Bible, it was just like reading a normal book, and it seemed like it was closed to me which I couldn’t understand either. I had also come to the realisation that I find it hard to spend time with God by myself, my mind can wander and I find it difficult to focus even though I really want to and I desperately want to meet with Him, there always seemed to be an unnamed block in front of me.

This was all very strange to me, I wasn’t depressed about it but I was desperate to find out what was going on.

Through this, I realised my relationship with God was so superficial, very basic and there was no real depth to it. I spent some time in the HOP talking to Him honestly about this, not at all knowing how to make it right but realising that it was wrong and admitting that and repenting for it and asking Him to change me, because I wanted to be at that place where I wanted God above all other things. It seemed that I had shifted a bit from that place and had become complacent.

Coupled with this revelation was the fact that I didn’t know quite how to get to know God better, there are many things that I want God to teach me about, seeing people healed, living in the miraculous, being able to really touch His heart on issues in prayer , to learn to control my tongue and not speak without thinking as I do so regularly but also, I want to be His friend, to really KNOW Him and hear His voice clearly.

James 1:5 – 6 (AMP) says:

“If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or fault finding, and it will be given him.

Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind.”

And that is something I have been ruminating on for a while now, knowing that I NEED knowledge and that apparently, If I ask God, then He will give it to me. I think my problem has been that word “apparently”.

I was never asking in faith and so I was uncertain. In fact, I was actually uncertain of God himself. Not really trusting that He would speak to me and give me knowledge, even though His word says that He will. So I ended up being “tossed by the wind”, not sure of anything at all and always staying at that superficial level that is mentioned by the writer of Hebrews 5:11 – 14: (NKJ)

“Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

I have read those verses many times but they had never really impacted me before. I think because I knew that I was definitely still a baby in God and was content with that. However, this time, I felt them hit my heart with precision. I knew that God was speaking directly to me and telling me that it is time to move on, and that He has been waiting for this time to move me on with anticipation and excitement. That is partly what the withdrawal was. God drew away from me to see my reaction. Much the same as a parent will teach their baby to walk, they will be placed on their feet and the parent will stand a distance away; watching to see if the child will walk or sit back down. God wasn’t really far away from me, I was still aware of Him but not in the same way as I had been previously. Before it was very much me being carried around by God, just like a mother carries a baby and there is nothing wrong with that. However, now I am really at the time where I need to stand on my feet and walk with my Father and learn from Him and as a human father takes joy in teaching his child how to live in this world, God, our heavenly father takes complete joy in this part of our walk with Him. (I really feel His excitement about this part of my life, I am 26 years old and so God has been waiting some time for this day to come!)

This is definitely the right time, the frustration I felt in my spirit was a symptom of that. Feeling dissatisfied with my current position and level of understanding caused me to seek God earnestly about this. There came a feeling of desperation and me just laying everything in front of God. He saw the seriousness of my resolution and then He spoke further to me.

I asked Him how I could move on in Him, how could I have this deeper relationship and closer level of intimacy?

God led me to several verses, again ones which I have read before but they had not impacted me in any way at all until now.

Firstly, He showed me Ephesians 1:17 – 18 (NKJ)

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints…”

This reiterates what I had read originally in Hebrews, God WILL give us spiritual wisdom, it is not something that we need to drum up ourselves, it comes from the Father. Then, it goes in in v2 to explain that we learn WHO we are in God, what our inheritance in Him is, God really spoke to me about the difference between a slave and an heir, an orphan and a daughter. This is also something I am asking Him to address in me as I know that I still operate out of the belief that I am a slave, not God’s precious daughter and once again, there is nothing I can personally do about this except cry out to God and ask Him to reveal this to my heart.

The Amplified version puts it like this:

“By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the Hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones).

This verse is literally dripping with the love and promise of God the Father. It speaks to me of the vast vast provision He has made for us, His children. The promise of having all the darkness and confusion taken away from my heart and having it replaced by light! All fear gone! All mistrust gone! And being left with the light of Jesus to shine out for all to see! Truly amazing.

I think that as my trust in Him grows then this issue of being an orphan will disappear. Adopted children go through a time of learning to trust their new parents, they go through a period of testing of the promises of love and need love to be constantly shown and reiterated to them before they feel fully able to depend on it and trust their parents for this love, and I think that it is the same with us and God, He has been, and continues to do this in my life, my job is to receive this love and to remind myself constantly of this, and to soak in His words on His love for me.

We then moved on to 2 Thessalonians 3:5 (AMP)

“May the Lord direct your hearts into [realizing and showing] the love of God and into the steadfastness and patience of Christ and in waiting for His return.”

So far I had learnt that I didn’t have the knowledge and understanding and relationship with God that I needed and that it was time to mature. Then God had shown me what the knowledge would achieve, giving me a glimpse of the amazing future and relationship with Him that awaited me as I matured in Him and also that He longs to take me into an even deeper understanding of His love and mature me to be more like Jesus but I was still stuck as for HOW this would all come about…

Until God took me to Colossians 2:6 – 10 and 3:10 (both AMP)

“As you have therefore received Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk (regulate your lives and conduct yourselves) in union with and conformity to Him. Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving. See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men’s ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah). For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature]. And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead–Father, Son and Holy Spirit–and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power].”

Colossians 3:10 (AMP)

“And have clothed yourselves with the new [spiritual self], which is [ever in the process of being] renewed and remolded into [fuller and more perfect knowledge upon] knowledge after the image (the likeness) of Him Who created it.”

The first speaks of how it all comes down to Jesus, saying how we need to be in complete union with Him, which echoes Jesus own words in John 15:4 – 5 (AMP)

“Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. [Live in Me, and I will live in you.] Just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me.

I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.”

This was real revelation to me, strange as it may seem, I had not connected growing in God with abiding in Jesus – even though this is stated implicitly throughout the New Testament, I somehow hadn’t quite got it yet! I think I had spent so long being a baby and crying out to God in despair and focusing only on my wounds that I had not even contemplated the thought of growing up and having a mature relationship with God and the idea that we need to move forward with Jesus. However, recently I have been realising that I don’t have anything in my life to worry about (in the past I have always had something on my mind to worry about, it had become something that pretty much took up most of my time – it is only recently that I have noticed this changing, I just don’t seem to have that same predisposition to worry over things continuously – obviously God moving in me) and that has been a real signpost to healing and maturity in my heart. This pretty much leads straight into the second scripture, I have started to feel so different recently, in the last few months, my personality has really changed from being, if I am honest, pretty awful. I have gone from being deeply insecure, angry, fearful and having all manner of other hideous emotional issues; to me having something that I never thought I would have – peace, love, restraint and the first signs of discipline! Jesus has really revolutionised and transformed me and I do feel like I have been clothed with a whole new spiritual self and am most certainly being “renewed and remolded” by God.

Finally, Ephesians 3:16 – 19 (AMP):

“May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality]. May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!”

This sums up the whole thing for me, the promise and love of God to transform us by the renewing of our mind, heart and also character, He never leaves us alone to just fend for ourselves which seems to be such a popular lie that people believe. Indeed, I have been guilty of believing such a thing, constantly attempting to work my way into God’s loving arms. We think that you get saved and then that’s it for you, Jesus died horribly and painfully and really we have no right to expect any more help from God, it’s up to us to live our lives as best we can for God. Yet another lie from the enemy to keep us broken and ineffectual in this world, anything to keep us from being a holy example to a lost generation. But in reality there really is so much more, He is our loving Father and He is looking with excitement and anticipation at all that we are going to be in Him. It is far beyond anything we can imagine. I heard TD Jakes recently on a Christian television channel and he said:

“There is a great difference between who you are and who you are called to be, God says ‘If you follow ME I will make you what you are not today’ ”.

And that is so true, Praise God that He looks at the long view, when we can only see a little way in front, He is right at the end cheering us on, as well as running right beside us, encouraging us and picking us up and dusting us down if we fall. But we have to surrender to Him, we have to abide in Jesus and soak ourselves in His word, to let it become truth in our lives, until it blots out every single lie and wrong belief we have, we have to start seeing ourselves as God sees us. We have to let the love of the Father permeate every single area of our lives.

1 John 4:16 – 17 (AMP)

“And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him. In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world.”

I was praying today, just allowing the Holy Spirit to lead me into what He wanted to do. After a while, my prayers turned towards the church in the UK.  I’ve said in a previous blog that there was a day last year when I felt God put His passion and zeal for His house in my heart.  I still carry this and so cannot help but pray for the church.  I also heard someone say a few months ago, ‘as the church goes, so goes the world’.  I have a deep conviction in my heart that this is true, and so whenever I pray for the church in Great Britain, I always have at the back of my mind the effect that a revived and awakened church would have on this nation.  I feel as though the church is actually the heart of Great Britain.  It is where the life-blood flows from.  As I prayed, the Holy Spirit opened His word to me and showed me that the church is also the eyes of the nation.  Matt 6:22-23 says ‘the eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!’  Our nation right now is in great darkness because our eyes are shut, allowing no light into the body.  The rest of this passage of scripture shows us the cause of the church’s darkness. ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and hate the other.  You cannot serve both God and money’ (19-21,24).  When the people of God forget that they are a spiritual people and are foreigners on this earth, we get caught up in the things of this world, with the worry of what we will eat and drink, and the clothes we wear.  But no one can serve two masters, and so the light of God’s kingdom dims, and eventually goes out, leaving the world in great darkness.  So I’m praying right now that God will disentangle His church from the cares of this world and set us free to be people of the Spirit in whom the Light of the World can shine bright again. 

“If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts know to you” Proverbs 1:23

I’ve been asking God to mature me so I thought proverbs was a good place to start. This scripture stood out to me. So often I pray show me your heart and I desire to know what he is thinking, but he says he will do these things for those that respond to his rebuke. I think sometimes God’s rebuke is easily missed, it can come through circumstances, a word at church or from just talking to a friend, just a gentle nudge in my heart. If I learn to respond to that nudge in my heart, then he will pour his heart to me. It’s say he takes the upright into his confidence. I know that’s where I want to be in his confidence, but if I want this I’ve got to let him rebuke me-discipline me. I think this is what I’m learning that I have to let him take me on his path, because that is the one that will lead to life.

As i am praying and asking God to lead me through prayer sometimes i see a picture and it starts starts like a broken jigsaw and piece by piece its coming together its a picture of beauty and love like a flower bed all the diffrent rich colours each with fine detail rich green grass the ray of the sun beaming down on it and as i look at the flowers the fine detail in each one i think of how God made us we read in psalm 139 v 13 - 16 ” For you formed my inward parts you covered me in my mothers womb i will praise you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are your works and that my soul knows very well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed and in your book they all were written the days fashioned me   “  It speaks to me how God looks at our lives with great detail my heart all that i am and looks with love and he sees the finished creation and the many parts being put together of how we go through this journey learning to prosper where we are planted to give glory to Gods name