Happy New Year everyone! I cannot believe that it is February already. The first month of 2012 just flew past…. So much is happening both in the natural and in the spirit that I feel like I am running just to stay abreast of things. And I do believe that there is an acceleration this year. Even as we started our first meetings, God’s weighty presence was with us to position and instruct us for 2012.
The most remarkable thing I have found is that God is intent on drawing us back to relationship with Him FIRST! If our relationship with Him is not our top priority, then what we do is of very little significance to Him. It may look good to the world around us, but God is not impressed. He wants our lives to be lived out of an intimate relationship with Him.
Apostle Natasha shared this scripture with us recently and I believe it is the scripture that will define our walk with the Lord in 2012:
Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace
thereby good will come to you.
Receive please instruction from His mouth
And lay up His words in your heart.
If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up,
you will remove iniquity far from your tents.
Then you will lay your gold in the dust
And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks.
Yes, the Almighty will be your gold,
And your precious silver
(Job 22:21-25)
This year we need to return to God. We may never have gone away from Him, but there is a cry to return to our first love. That passion for Him that caused us to turn away from every other thing. That all consuming fire that burned inside us when we first met Him. As we start the year, I have felt drawn to spend time with God, meditating on His word and just being in His presence. As I have done this, the fire that He lives in, is starting to burn on my life and the flames are being fanned. All other pursuits and precious pastimes are being laid down so that we can make the Lord our gold and our silver!
I encourage you- this is a time to seek the Lord with your whole heart. Press in to Him for a fresh revelation of who He is. If you feel that God is far from you, know that He is not. It is simply a new season and God is not in the same place that He was. He is not speaking in the same way. His presence is not manifesting in the same songs, we are not getting goosebumps at our usual scriptures and the sense of Him around us may have shifted.But God has not changed. He is still God. In this new season, He wants you to encounter Him again that we may grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
It is our responsibility to find Him in this new place. We must lay down our old ‘methods and mindsets’ and earnestly pursue Him. This pursuit must be mixed with faith… But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6) God will be found by you if you seek Him with your whole heart. Let’s continue reading our scripture in Job:
For then you will have your delight in the Almighty
And lift up your face to God
you will make your prayer to Him,
He will hear you,
And you will pay your vows
you will also declare a thing
And it shall be established for you,
So light will shine on your ways
(Job :26-28)
God is saying that we will find Him and He will hear our prayers, establish us and shine His light on our paths- what a promise! Read on and see what more He will do…
When they cast you down and you say, Exaltation will come
then He will save the humble person
He will even deliver one who is not innocent
Yes, he will be delivered by the cleanness of your hands
(Job:22:29-30)
What an awesome promise of God. People who are guilty will be delivered because of the cleanness of OUR hands! God wants us to be the conduits by which He delivers people and nations! God is getting ready to invade nations and take back whole people groups from the clutches of the Evil One and He is wanting to use YOU as His agent.
In 2012, it all starts with us seeking Him….
