I have spent today wondering if I might be losing readers from my recent posts. This season that I am in is a season of urgency and desperation for the souls of many I hold close to my heart. As I read through the pages of Ezekiel and Revelation and as I see the hardness of the hearts of those mentioned in the Scriptures and I see how they so clearly are the picture of the hearts of so many I see today my chest tightens.
As I sat here and stared at the keys on my laptop and wondered if I should post a blog about some recent failure of mine, I have many… a time of being a horrible wife or mother or friend or sister or daughter… I could share how I just pouted on the phone with my husband as an Alabama football game is now determining when we leave the beach… or I could share about how I know my oldest gets her sarcastic mouth towards her little sister from her sarcastic mother… but then I read
and I remember that I am not after readers… I am after disciples. True disciples.
I don’t write to entertain you… I could. I am sure that I could go back to my earlier unregenerate days and I could go back to those books I began that were filled with flesh and lust and desires that lead only to death… I could right my own shades of grey and consume hours of your life and brain with useless thoughts… but I can’t go back.
I fight to go forward.
I persevere to press on.
I want it to be well with my soul.
I am in a season where I am looking for His return. I always search the skies for my Knight in shining armor. I listen for His upward call daily… straining my ears hoping to hear that trumpet sound. I don’t ever want to live again in that place where the thought of my Love calling me home brought fear and dread to my soul… I like longing for Him much better than running from Him.
I want my life to make you hungry for Him…
I am one of the weird ones who actually believes that when He says
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:8-10
and
Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are:
immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions,factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these,
of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you,
that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21
that He means it. If I am to believe that He speaks the truth about forgiveness and grace and His promise of salvation and eternity with Him then I have to also believe that He speaks truth about those He will refuse to allow in His kingdom. If my lifestyle, the choices I make daily, fall into one of the above categories… then how can I believe that I have the kingdom of God at hand?
I want to die well. I want to leave this earth ready. I don’t want my last breath to be breathed while in the midst of openly practicing any of the above things and just leave all those behind me hoping that maybe I might have slipped into heaven on that confession I made some years ago. I want to leave no doubt as to where I am in my last breath on this earth.
I want there to be no doubt that I am as my girls say “a Jesus Freak”.
I don’t want to be one of those who picks and chooses what parts of Jesus I want… I want all of HIM.
Believe me, I have not yet obtained it…
Believe me, I have struggled and wrestled, and begged, and pleaded, and fought, and stumbled, and slipped, and cried, and screamed, and wished for death just to ease the pain of having to choose faith… but I have never returned to my vomit… even when the opportunity and temptation and excuse was there. And please know that it was not in my own will, nor my own strength, but only my love for HIM that kept me.
Oh how I love Him.
You see I have tasted Him. I have beheld His glory. I have experienced His grace and truth. He has come and dwelt among me and within me… I like Him. I want to keep Him close. My eternity began with Him on December 9th 2001. We became one flesh. He in me and I in Him, His Spirit within me, and He hid me in His Father. He has hid me in the safety of His Father’s arms and has asked me to wait for Him and has promised me that He would come for me. He has gone to prepare a place for me in our new home. I am betrothed to Him, the seal of His Spirit encircles my heart as sure as this band of gold given to me by my earthly husband encircles the finger of my left hand… and the marriage day with my Heavenly Groom is coming. While I wait I keep myself ready. Anticipating the return of my Love, listening for the call, washing myself daily in His Word so that I might be presented to Him blameless and pure without spot or blemish.
Oh how I want you to love Him… more than anything else in this world I want you to love Him. I want you to hunger for Him. I want you to desire Him with all that is within you. I want your every breathe to bear His name on the sound of your exhale. I want your soul to physically crave to be united with Him in holy covenant. Your spirit testifying with His Spirit that you are one with Him. Oh how I want you to love Him… to really love Him.
So I am in a season of focusing on eternity… with eternity comes judgment.
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
Hebrews 9:27
Yes a season of grace is much more pleasant than a season of judgment… and I know that I will return to that season again… but we are approaching the Fall here in the South… the days when the green turns to brown and the leaves fall from the trees and they stand naked before all the world…
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And there is no creature hidden from His sight,
but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Hebrews 4:12-13
So the confession of this christian housewife today is that I need confession and repentance and communion and redemption… I need always to be able to stand naked, bare, open, without the leaves… before my King. Trusting in His love for me enough to say NO to all the other things that fight for the affections that belong only to Him. For what God has joined together… let no one or no thing separate.