Welcome to Day 5 of Part 3‘s Chapter 1 of Arise and Shine. Today, Anna is sharing a free will offering of incense in Scriptures and a testimonial poem of praise to the power of Christ’s intercession at work in her. Yes! His incense arises in power in our weakness, compelling us to loose His Promises in faith, and to see them bear fruit in our lives and others’.
Loosing the Promises of God
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:19 (ESV)
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. Revelation 1:17-19 (ESV)
Grief waits upon No one It swells And breaks My placid perfect Life awake.
Now spit And foam The Promises Long hid Come rushing Crashing Back to Life.
The longing From my heart His Promises To know Long hid away In drawers Fastened Shut.
But as the waves Swell And break The drawers Loose His Promises To life.
My body, mind And soul In Spirit breath Awake.
From deep within The Living Word Each Promise Brings In Holy Spirit breath To sing.
For in the Word's Waking My heart Draws near Christ's heart To hear.
This childlike heart In steadfast love is Rootèd secure:
That I might Taste and see The width And breadth And depth Of Christ.
Living water rushes Strong, crashing My heart to search And know In waves of mercy The blood of Christ Still flows.
Each day anew My burdened heart Christ draws near In Spirit song To wake And sing with Him Each Word To life.
Before, behind Beneath, above My Savior sings And calls to me: "Draw near And I'll draw near To you."
But now I know It is not me But Christ Who fulfills The law in me.
He draws me That I may Draw near To Him.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (ESV)
And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Matthew 13:52 (ESV)
Welcome to Day 3 of Part 2‘s Chapter 3. Today, Anna is sharing a free will offering of gold – a poem, testimony and prayer – praising Jesus for the joy and peace He births in us through His perfect living Word.
I had a dream several months ago of this large ruler and I was petrified of him, until I got smaller and smaller and entered underneath him. It was almost like I disappeared into him and that then I was no longer afraid of him.
At the time, God was asking me to humble myself and go lower and lower. I did so, following His call, but not understanding what He was up. At every turn the writing education project I had felt His call to begin kept getting smaller and smaller, until what I still had sitting there He asked me to delete.
Now, I realize it was never about the actual project. Jesus was after my obedience and had designed every step along the way to grow me in my trust of Him and to refine me to look more like Him. Through it all He was teaching me to delight in His Voice, to look to the unseen and to rejoice in His fatherly desire to see me learn and grow in His perfecting Word.
It was about allowing Him to shape my character. He taught me so much about laying down my own expectations for His. He shut the doors I thought He would open, only to open doors that required me to stoop lower and lower to serve others in their need, but also to allow Him to refresh and replenish me.
For, as I listened for His Word to me, He taught me so much about setting and keeping boundaries that preserved His rest in my life. He enabled me to come away with Him between all the tasks and to continue loving my children and husband well. And where I disobeyed His gentle call to rest, He was quick to rebuke me and lead me to repentance, showing me why His safe boundaries are always best. Through it all, He showed me parts of my character He desires to continue refining to make me more like Him. I learnt so much.
At the time, I saw the ruler as those I had to set my project before to find financial support. Now, I realize that ruler is Jesus and that He worked through everyone on my path, continually inviting me to become smaller and smaller. As I humbled myself, again and again beneath God’s mighty hand, I became less and less fearful. I grew in my confidence of His Word to me.
Suddenly, the opinions of those around me mattered little. Not just because I was bathing myself in God’s Word to me, but because God was opening my eyes to the beauty of His freeing truth. The path He set for me lifted off burdens at every turn that I could never have lifted off myself.
I began to obey my Jesus, no longer to do the “right” thing, but because I loved and trusted Him above all else. I witnessed and rejoiced in His loving protection, direction and refining of me and others, every step I took.
It was such an amazing experience. So sheltered in His love, after all His recent pruning, I found the lies I once clung to, gliding off me. The truth of God’s Word surrounded me at every turn, uplifting me and carrying me forward.
Now, I can also look back at my past with new eyes. For the past seven years, since God brought this little lost sheep home, He continually asked me to surrender one thing and one person after another into His hands: some physically and some spiritually and some both. It has been an incredibly painful and gruelling process, but one that I now see is reaping such fruit. Our God’s Word is truly gold – true and trustworthy:
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Hebrews 12:11 KJV
A few weeks ago, I penned a poem to express this journey God has taken me on. As you read it, I pray you too recognize the fruit of peace the LORD is reaping in your own life and heart through all the painful surrenders He has walked you through also:
Peace
Caught Between two w/Words The religion I know
And the Son Of God I hear Beckoning.
I wrestle With the Alpha And Omega Who asks me To surrender
The letter of the Law I know For the Living Word's Searching And knowing.
But what can I do But open the door To my Lord's knocking To sup with Him?
Where can I go But to the only One Who has the Word Of life?
So I surrender My known To be known Fully and wholly
By the only True God Who stills My heart To know
The world And all who dwell Therein are His.
I yield The cup of suffering To my lips now take And drink
In communion The Living Word To my Father In thanksgiving lifting
I break The bread And take Eat.
I fill my heart With the Law fulfilled Who calls for me
To join Him In each and every Death that's Dying.
To take the hand Of the sovereign God Who walks me To the tomb To show me what He already sees:
"Unwrap him now And let him loose" I hear my Savior Calling.
His work Of surrender Just invites me Into
More.
More JOY Before me laid Than I could ever Think of, ask for Or imagine.
For, Christ's blood Was shed For this:
To reconcile All things to Him Whether on earth Or heaven
To make
Peace.
Now, rather than seeing these surrenders as my shame to carry and as proof that I failed, I see them as God’s gift to me and proof of His Word – His gold – growing and flourishing in me. For, all along, God was lifting one burden after another off of my shoulders to shower me in His life-giving grace.
What He has gifted me through it all reminds me so much of John the Baptist’s Words in John 3:29-30, ESV:
The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom stands and listens for him, and is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Now, I see that all that decreasing Christ brings through each surrender is in fact what brings us such peace. For through each dying to self, we come to know how deeply our Abba Father knows us and loves us.
Every trauma trigger shaking my body has only invited me into a deeper and deeper resting in my God’s golden Word to me. I now see how my precious Jesus has been ever increasing in me, through my every decreasing. And oh the joy that brings me now, as I look back with cleansed eyes. Praise Him!
Will you join me as I end today’s free will offering of gold in prayer?
Precious Father, oh how we thank and praise You for the gold of Your Word. We thank You for choosing imperfect and weak vessels like us to display Your glory and grace to this yearning world.
We thank You that You are laboring in such love and devotion through Your Son to refine us to make us look more and more like You. Thank You that even when the path You set for us doesn’t make any sense, we can trust Your perfect will and Your desire to grow us and bless us.
Forgive us, where we have looked to the seen and bemoaned our lack or the closing doors. Forgive us, where we have based our identity on anything other than You. Father, thank You for loving us enough to withhold things, people and communities from us that You know will destroy the beauty of Your Son in us.
Thank You that You withhold no good thing from those who are upright, who walk in You. Father, open our eyes to see what You see: the beauty and perfection of YourWordto us and the healing it is bringing to our hearts. Oh LORD how we long to decrease that YOU may increase in and through us. Have Your Way in us!
Thank You for inviting us to commune with You through each setting apart. Thank You for silencing the enemy’s accusations through each closing door, so that we can hear Your Voice more clearly than ever before. Thank You for changing both our minds and our direction, for blotting out all our sins that we may now bathe in the refreshing and healing waters of Yourliving Word and Presence with us.
Welcome to Chapter 3‘sDay 2of Part 2 of Arise and Shine. Today, Bettie is sharing a poem, story and prayer as a free will offering of gold, in praise of God’s precious presence with us and His heavenly touch.
How Long, Oh Lord? The pain wraps around me And I am felled Like a tree toppled, thudding As it drops to the ground.
The questions swirl Heavenward, in the morning Dew, light swimming Around my foggy eyes As they narrow and shut.
“Open your eyes.”
The order comes at me Like a voice from The sky, and I scrunch The sweat off my face As I try to gaze out.
While the pain throbs I see what had lain Hidden before me: Sparkles gathered on Every blade of grass And each leaf tip.
Colors shimmering White and bright, twinkle From the warm sun’s Beckoning to waken The early morning life.
“But one drop.”
Voice urges again To see with new eyes A Drop of Glory catches The sun but won’t let go And reflects a Golden ray.
My pain remains Underneath a covering So sweet and exploding with Glory in my heart As I have touched Heaven.
How Long, Oh Lord? While the Glory remains Your Golden Glory rests Inside my heart, Heaven Holds me here.
And I am loved.
“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Madgalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?’” Mark 16:1-3
The days ahead can seem impossible for those who live in a state of constant pain. But when a sudden flare-up drops the pain to a whole new level, a flood of questions about the future can easily overwhelm even the strongest survivor. It is in those kinds of moments that I have had to face my own weakness head-on. I thought I knew how to lean into God’s grace, but when a new level of pain knocked me flat, I realized that I had simply grown accustomed to carrying the pain myself. “How will I function? How will I survive the days ahead?”
Crushed to my core, I heard a gentle whisper, calling me to acknowledge that it was never mine to bear alone. This life was meant to be lived only in HIS strength. Was there a gift then in the trial? Oh, yes, resoundingly yes! He rolled away the stone that I could not have moved myself. He walked me through a day when I never could have kept the Faith on my own.
Oh, beloved, are you crushed under the weight of questions and pain? We weren’t ever meant to bear that weight alone. Look up to His light today, and let Him show you the sparkling gold waiting in the midst of the trail: His presence is His gift for you.
“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. “ Mark 16:4
“These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:7
Dear Lord Jesus,
We come crushed and broken to You today. We confess that we don’t know how to carry this pain any longer. Will you lift the weight from off of our shoulders? Thank You that You have already rolled away the stone. Thank You that the glory of Your presence is here for us today. We want to receive the gift of Your glory, the beauty of Your honor and praise today. In Your precious name we pray,
Welcome to Chapter 3 of Part 2. This week we are resting in the free will offering of gold: the perfection of Christ, the Living Word of God. Today, Anna is sharing an introductory post, as she reflects on how God compels us to bring forward this free will offering in Christ, through the shaking and refining fires He sends our way.
At the end of this introduction, you are invited to join Anna and Bettie in prayer. Each day, we will then also add a new free will offering of gold – poems, prayers and testimonies of praise and thanksgiving to our God. May each offering encourage you also to bring forward your own free will offering of pure gold in Christ Jesus.
Take a sacred offering for the Lord. Let those with generous hearts present the following gifts to the Lord: gold, silver, and bronze; Exodus 35:5
Interestingly, gold, like silver, was given by the Israelites as part of the wave offering:
The total amount of the gold from the wave offering used for all the work on the sanctuary was 29 talents and 730 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel. Exodus 38:24 NIV
“A salient point regarding the wave offering: it is lifted up and presented to the Eternal, but then waved back toward the priests and given to them for their use in doing the Eternal’s work.” (Source: https://talmidimyeshua.org/wavedfirstfruits.htm). Likewise, even the Levites themselves were given to the LORD as a wave offering, being consecrated to Him, before being put to work in the Temple as priests.
Today, we too, are set apart, or consecrated, unto God as royal priests that we might declare His greatness.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; 1 Peter 2:9 (KJV)
If we look at the Hebrew Word for “wave”, we discover it means:
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
offering, shaking, wave offering
From nuwph; a brandishing (in threat); by implication, tumult; specifically, the official undulation of sacrificial offerings — offering, shaking, wave (offering).
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13 (ESV)
And this Word:
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:26-29 (ESV)
Have you also noticed that it is through the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our weakness, as we shake and tremble, that God sets us apart to serve Him, as He shakes off all that has no part in Him? Praise God perfect and flawless Jesus -the Word fulfilled at the Cross – chose to perfect His power in human weakness, that He might now, through His Spirit, perfect His power in each one of us.
Have you noticed God’s shaking in your own life recently? Have you found yourself, like me, trembling at His call to you, wondering how someone like you could fulfill such a call? Then, you (and I) are in good company.
For, have a look at Paul’s words to us from 1 Corinthians 2:3-5 (MSG):
“I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate—I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it—and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God’s Spirit and God’s power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.”
What a beautifully humbling and freeing experience for Paul in his weakness, and what a precious reminder to all of us today that our God perfects His power in weakness. As we yield our weakness to Him, Christ’s pure Word arises in us in power.
And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times. Psalm 12:6
Interestingly, the gold the Israelites once brought forward for Solomon’s Temple was used to overlay the clasps, fillets and capitals. These items strengthened the weakest parts of the Temple’s frame and joined the many curtains into one whole curtain.
Do you see how Christ now literally strengthens and makes us – His Body – whole, perfect and complete in Himself, through the work of the Living and breathing Word in us. He literally overlays and joins us to Himself, the Head, and thereby to each other also, through each shaking and refining fire.
For, now, through Jesus, our spirit is united to the Spirit of our God, so that at the sound of His Word our hearts hearken to obey Him:
But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 1 Corinthians 6:17 (ESV)
It’s then, as we put out our nets afresh at the Voice of Jesus, just like Peter did, after a long tiring night of battling in his own flesh, that we discover that our Jesus – the Word made flesh – always knows best. For the Word’s timing, instruction and love for us is perfect and flawless.
It’s right there, as we watch Christ’s power being perfected in our weakness that we also come to know our Jesus and His love for us and His Body, more and more intimately.
No! We “did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but [we] have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Romans 8:15-17 (ESV)
No, in our muck and mire of self, praise God we have the power of the Spirit of God breathing in life and power into us:
Do you see how our Abba Father is answering the prayer His Son, Jesus, prayed, right before He gave His life at the Cross for us? Through His Spirit, He is now laboring to make us One, not in and through our own perfection or strength, but in His perfecting power in our weakness and imperfection. He is sanctifying us and unifying us in the gold of His Word (John 12: 17 – 23, ESV):
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
As we prepare to share our free will offerings of gold with you in the coming week, we invite you also to join us in laying the Promises of our God before the feet of Jesus in our weakness. May He write His flawless Word upon our hearts and perfect His power in our every weakness. May He bind us – His Body – together in love as we come to know Him more and more intimately, through every shaking and purifying fire sent our way.
Will you join Bettie and I in prayer?
Dear Holy Father,
Only you are pure and perfect! You are altogether lovely, with no blemish found in You! Oh that our hearts would worship you in the splendor of Your Holiness! And yet, You would come to us, weak and lowly, and offer to make us Holy, even as You are Holy.
We await the day when we will be fully perfected with You in Your city of pure gold. We offer our hearts to you now, in the Name and Beauty of Your Son Jesus.
May our hearts be open to receive your gift of perfection through your own Blameless, Dear Son. Stir our hearts, through Your shaking and refining fires, that we might invite You to make Your perfect home in us, now. Thank You for Your shaking and Your refining fires that are removing the dross in us, to reveal and lift up the pure gold of Your Living Word, Jesus, in and through us.
We await the day when we will be fully perfected with You in Your city of pure gold. We offer our hearts to you now, in the Name and Beauty of Your Son Jesus.
Amen
The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. Revelation 21:8
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. Revelation 21:21
