'Arise [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept
you—rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your
light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and dense darkness, but the Lord
shall arise upon you, and His glory shall be seen on you'. Isaiah 60:1-2 Amp
2024 has arrived! Will it be same old same old, or will it be different! The outcome is
very much dependant upon what choices you and I make in this coming season. As
I was reflecting upon the highs and lows of last year I felt a smile creeping across
my face; Holy Spirit led me to get out my old notebooks and thankfully I had dated
them! I was amazed at the things that I had written, the revelation that Holy Spirit
had given me from the word, the personal encouragements and the words and
encouragement that I felt for others. Throughout the months I noticed there were
days when I hadn’t written a thing. It’s possible to be in the same house as
someone but go days with little or no communication, and I felt the sadness in Holy
Spirit’s heart.
I don’t like to hurt Holy Spirit. I don’t like to disappoint Him and I certainly don’t want
to disobey Him, because I love Him! However, I was protecting my heart by keeping
the pain from a family situation in a box; I’d given Him the problem but withheld my
heart from receiving the healing it needed. I didn’t want to go there! Holy Spirit was
pursuing my heart. He is not superficial in His pursuit of us, He’s intentional, He
wants intimacy. INTO ME SEE. And he wasn’t going to let me leave 2023 without
having my heart healed. There is nothing hidden from Holy Spirit but the crazy thing
is that we think out of sight out of mind! He won’t force healing upon us, we always
have a choice.
When we choose the path of healing we have to leave the HOW to
Him! That can be the scary bit, not being able to control the situation. It’s the place
of learning to trust, and that might be trusting others to help us in the process.
Some of my greatest victories involved others, their words of encouragement,
prayers and those much needed kicks up the rear! I’ve had those too from Holy
Spirit.
There was an occasion at a soaking season (soaking is a time of sitting or lying in
the presence of God with gentle music playing, spending time in his presence) when I
was having a moan to the Lord – well, it was a pity party really. The words were
barely out of my mouth when Holy Spirit said to me, ‘Stop it, you know better, get
up and worship me!” Well I burst out laughing, the way He said it to me was so
funny - it wasn’t condemning, just funny. I said to Him, ‘Can’t I just have a moment to
vent?’ I remember laughing as I said it. I got up and did what he said and my whole
attitude changed. He knows me so well. He knows you so well too!
"Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of
grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favour to us sinners), that we may
receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every
need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need
it]." Hebrews 4:16 AMP
We have all had times where circumstances have kept us in a depression-like state,
but the scripture is giving a command to arise, to get up out of the depression that
life’s circumstances have kept us in. To arise is to have a change of position, to
refine your focus!
“Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is
healthy, your whole body is filled with light.
But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And
if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness
is." Matthew 6: 22-23
The enemy uses fear and worry etc to distract you, to get you to focus your
attention on something inferior to your purpose. If the enemy for example can’t get you into
sexual sin, to shift from something moral to immoral, then at least what he’ll try and do is to add your moral conviction to many issues in life so that you spread yourself too thin and be ineffective, the aim being to get you to defend your position outside of the spirit of Jesus. The issues of distraction are huge!
Take a sniper for example; their focus is pinpoint sharp, they notice even the
smallest detail, and their enemy isn’t aware of their presence. They blend into their
surroundings; movement is minimal. Purpose refines their focus.
There was a time that my hobby, photography, was drawing me away and diverting my affection from Holy Spirit. The solution for me was for a season to stop taking photographs. I refined my focus!
If He is the one thing that you give your attention to then you will become a better
parent, student, worker etc.
The anointing is actually released through affection!
There are two people in the book of Luke that gives a great example of refined
focus, Simeon and Anna.
“At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and
devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The
Holy Spirit was upon him and had revealed to him that he would not die until
he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So
when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law
required, Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
“Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised.”
“Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel
from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had
been married only seven years. Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four.
She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with
fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and
Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone
who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.”
There is so much to unpack in these few verses, maybe another time we can do
that. Thankfully we aren’t called to be snipers to cause death and destruction but
we have been given a position of authority to have an eagle's eye view of our
landscape.
"And He raised us up together with Him [when we believed], and
seated us with Him in the heavenly places, [because we are] in Christ Jesus".
Eph 2:6
Simeon and Anna had that one-eye anointing, singleness of purpose. They were all
in! If you are not all in (Christ Jesus) you’ll miss the signs. When you’re all in you
will be aware of the subtleties and nudges - make that phone call, send that card.
You’ll see the subtle story line behind a story, the writing on a billboard etc.
When we look down from a great height, on a plane everything looks exceedingly
small, and we grasp some of the magnitude of the world around us and have a
small God-like glimpse of what Jesus is seeing from those heavenly places.
Compare that to where you are standing right now - if you look down what are you
seeing? Are you seeing yourself small and insignificant overwhelmed by the
circumstances of life! Then arise, get up, change position, change your focus, look
up! Let Jesus show you his perspective of your situation. Let the light that is in you
be a beacon of freedom for not only you but for others that you come into contact
with!
When you enter a dark room and switch on the light your focus of attention is
suddenly transformed as your eyes adjust to the brightness in the room. There is an
inexhaustible amount of light in you that if you give your undivided attention to the
source of that light, Holy Spirit will express God’s glory through you, which is meant
to be seen and felt in the earth today.
Acts 4:13 reads like this: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and
John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were
astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”
The Hebrew word glory is kabob; this means to give something weight [like in English we give weight to opinions if they are important, worthy [also the meaning of the Hebrew
word honour].
Let your light shine before all men!
“The more focused you are as to why you are alive the less it takes to
encourage you!” Bill Johnson
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