Hello everyone! 11 days left until graduation, and it's really just starting to hit me... only more 6 school days left. Wow. I'm beginning to feel an anxious sort of desperation stirring inside of me... not anxious in a negative sense but more like I'm just grasping wildly for as much as I can get my hands and heart around for these last precious weeks.
I just finished my last assigned reading book of the year! It was Bill's latest book called Strengthen Yourself in the Lord , and I can't even BEGIN to tell you how much of a word-in-season it was as we're coming to the end of the school year. It fed, encouraged and strengthened me so much so I wanted to offer to you a few of the revelations that really impacted my heart...
"God has set us up to succeed. Yes, He commanded us to disciple the nations. It looks like an impossible task. But Jesus is the Desire of the Nations, and He dwells inside us... Our job is learning to let Him out, and we only do that to the degree that we are like Him. This is why the desire to become like Him is the driving passion of the Christian life. When we truly see who He is and what He's done for us, when we've tasted His love and power, a desperate conviction is born in us-- we simply cannot live any longer with the areas in our lives that are inconsistent with who Jesus is. This conviction must grip our hearts so completely that we resolve never to quite until we are completely conformed to His image. In becoming like Christ, we become the very thing the world longs for."
"I must take personal responsibility to strengthen every weak place, and to break any and all agreements with fear! We must become the ongoing manifestation of revival and stop waiting for outside circumstances to line up with our dreams."
"As you become more and more convinced that you are a person with a great identity and purpose, that you are prepared for the moment you're standing in, and that all of Heaven is waiting to back you up as you choose to be faithful to your purpose, your perception of which forces (the kingdom of darkness vs. the Kingdom of His marvelous Light) are most operative in your life will shift."
"No one else can fulfill my destiny for me. No one else can possess my promises. Complacency will not draw the baptism of the Holy Spirit into my life. There's something about exercising my will and faith to step beyond convenience that matters to God."
"Fire always falls on sacrifice. And in worship, sacrifice is no longer mere physical expression or verbal declarations. We are the sacrifice. And when we are the sacrifice, we cannot help but be changed."
"People's needs can exert tremendous pressure on us, and that pressure will expose the places in our heart that care more about meeting the expectations of others than doing only what Jesus is doing. In His ministry, Jesus met the needs of many people, but He also walked past alot of other needy people. He understood that as one man, the only way He could succeed at what He was doing was to keep Himself in a place where what moved Him was not merely human need but the actual heart of His Father."
Is that enough meaty revelation for you? :) I know I'll be asking the Lord to work all of that in me for the next few months. There was SO MUCH in this book that cut right to my core... so many things that God was reinforcing and strengthening in me even just by reading it, and more things still that He was freshly provoking me with. One of the overriding themes that He has been repeatedly speaking into me has just been a deeper revelation of Jesus. He's the center of everything. He is intimate covenant relationship... He is the embodiment and completion of our redemption and victory... In Him, all the fullness of God dwelt, and from Him we can see a perfect reflection of the heart of the Father. Jesus encompasses my identity and destiny, all that I am and all I'll ever become... He is everything. His name is power, breath, and living water...And His very Spirit dwells inside of me. And even more amazing still, my intimacy with Him and my pursuit of Him will result in the healing and salvation of the nations.
That's just a taste of what's going on in me! I hope it feeds you and stirs you up! Keep me in an extra measure of prayer during these last days of school, that continue to be equipped and empowered with everything I need for this next summer season! Thanks!
Love and blessings,
Melissa
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