The Call of the Shofar

Posted on by Dorci

For whatever reason, God put on my heart to look up and post the blowing of the shofar. I did a little research to find out some of the reasons it was sounded, and this is what I found:

“beginning on the second day of Rosh Chodesh Elul (and continuing until Erev Rosh Hashanah) the custom is to blow the shofar every day (except on Shabbat).” The Hebrew month of Elul is a time of repentance in preparation for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

“It is a wake-up call to sleepers, designed to rouse us from our complacency.”

Do you know what day is the 2nd day of the Hebrew month of Elul?

It began today at sunset.

“Yeshua spoke of the shofar blast from the angels who would ‘gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.'” (Matt. 24:31)

The eclipse took place on Elul 1, the same day that Moses went up on the mountain for 40 days and nights, the same day Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. The shofar signifies spiritual warfare, and God’s victory.

Listen to the shofar. Can you imagine it?

If you want to read more about it, I found these websites:  

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Fall_Holidays/Elul/Shofar/shofar.html and http://www.jewfaq.org/elul.htm

Take Heart

Posted on by Dorci

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 

When He comes, He will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. John 16:7-11

Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. John 16:23b,24b

The Road to the Power of God

Posted on by Dorci

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:7b-10) ~Paul the apostle  

There are days, weeks, lifetimes that I feel overwhelmed by my weaknesses. My sins. Regrets.

And I think how in the world could I ever expect God to use someone like me?  

I have nothing. I am wholly inadequate. I live with daily constraints of fatigue and pain. I am constantly thinking and saying and doing things I don’t want to. Things that are contrary to the nature of a loving and forgiving and gracious God.  I look at who I am and I’m disappointed.  How could God not be?

If I were Him I’d run in the other direction in search of someone better.

But here’s the thing: I’m not God – praise the Lord.

And here’s the other thing – I may be inadequate, I may be sinful, but I love my Jesus.

It’s those very weaknesses that had me running to Him in the first place, and keep me running back because I know how much I need Him.

Spending time with my gracious Lord brings into focus even more how great He is and it is humbling. I compare myself to Him and I see how short I come up in the godliness department. My weaknesses and sins are more evident when I’m in His presence.

And I see again just how very much I need my Father.

When I need Him I call on Him to do in and through me what I never could. I leave room for Him to do the miraculous, because I need a miracle, every single day.  

There are those who would have Christians believe God doesn’t want any of His children to be sick. I would refer them to Paul. And there are those who believe their sickness must mean they are being punished by God. I would again refer them to Paul, and Job, and the many others who found themselves weak in some way, yet we clearly see God’s hand was on them.

Yes, God heals. Yes, God still does miracles. When it suits His purposes.  

But don’t limit God.  God uses all kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances for all kinds of things.

Our weaknesses, whatever they may be, don’t disqualify us from being used by God. In fact they can be the road leading right to it. 

We are all weak in some way, most of us in many ways. 

The world tells us Be strong!  Be powerful.  In doing that we refuse the power of God in our lives, and we remain in our weakness.

But acknowledging our weaknesses, taking them to the throne room of God and putting our life in His hands out of sheer desperation, knowing we have nothing good in and of ourselves, is the very thing that will make us useful.  He’s then able to fill us with His strength and do great things through us, not because of who we are, but in spite of it.

And all the glory is His.

The prayers prayed out of desperation tend to be stripped of all pretense.  The mask comes off, the formality is laid aside, and we get real with God. That kind of realness leads to an authentic, personal relationship with our Heavenly Father.  Our Abba.  And that unleashes His power in us.  

It’s not the strength of our bodies, or the intelligence of our minds, or the skill of our hands.  

It’s the willingness of our hearts. 

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. 2 Chronicles 16:9

Be Strong and Courageous, Part 3

Posted on by Dorci

Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16

You might have read about the trial I plunged into 13 years ago. I’ve written about it many times, as it’s given me plenty to write about. In case you haven’t, or you’ve forgotten, I’ll give you a little recap.

I sat in church one Sunday all those Sundays ago, and heard the words straight out of the book of Joshua, “Be strong and courageous.”  Those are the words God gave Joshua as he was about to take over Moses’s job leading the Israelites through the desert and into the Promised Land.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of hearing or reading certain words in the Bible, and you were sure they had leapt off the page, stared you straight in the face daring you to adopt them as your own.  

If you’ve known Christ for very long, you probably have.  If you’re relatively new to following Him, I’m telling you right now, the day will come when that will happen. Don’t second guess it. The Holy Spirit, our Counselor in Chief, is speaking to you.

I knew He was speaking to me the first time.  But apparently once wasn’t enough.  Either I was slow or the journey would be long and rough. Both, it turns out. I don’t remember the exact situation each time, but over the course of the next month I heard those words three more times, and each subsequent time they came at me faster and louder.

A friend was there every time, too, and we talked about the fact that it was odd that those words kept coming up. The fourth time I heard them, my friend, who was sitting a few rows in front of me, turned and looked into my eyes. She confirmed it wasn’t just my imagination.  She knew something was up, too.

Of course neither of us had any idea what it meant.  But I was soon to find out. Sort of.

I had been having some bad headaches, and an even more difficult time sleeping. One Sunday, about a month after my four personal exhortations, I just so happened to be at another church our church had planted, and I just so happened to run into a friend of mine in the bathroom, and she just so happened to ask how I was doing, and I told her.  She told me I should have my blood pressure checked.

My blood pressure had never been anything over a perfectly respectable normal, even prior to surgery, and I didn’t have any of the usual risk factors, so I knew it wasn’t high, but just to cross that off my list, I put my arm in one of those blood pressure cuffs while I was at the store shopping after church, and pushed the button.

I looked at the reading, and stared at it for a minute.  Surely it couldn’t be that high. 

Maybe it was just high because I was trying to corral my son as I sat there while that cuff tightened around my arm like the grim reaper was trying to pull me away.  So I took a couple of deep breaths, tried to calm down, and pushed the button again.  This time it was even higher. Before I knew it I found myself in a fire station where they could take it and tell me that the machine just wasn’t working and my blood pressure was just fine.

Only it wasn’t.  Suddenly they were asking me if I could see, was my vision blurry, how did I feel…  I felt fine, except that now tears were rolling down my face. Something was terribly, drastically wrong. They wanted to call an ambulance, but my husband promised to take me directly to the emergency room.

And that started my journey through my own dry, confusing, anxiety-filled desert. My journey into learning to believe God even when things seemed out of control. Even when it seemed like He wasn’t listening to my cries for healing, or even for a diagnosis for that sky-high blood pressure and the many health issues that would follow.

I wanted my old life back so bad.  I wanted to serve and do and be and go…

But God refused to let me go back to Egypt. He had better things for me. Not things you can see, mind you. While I had prayed many times for deliverance from this surely evil thing that had taken ahold of my body, God was delivering me from other things far more important.

The third time God spoke these words to Joshua, He finished His admonition with this: “Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

And whether I could see Him or feel Him, my God has been with me, too, delivering me from those dark places of unbelief, from lack of discipline, from self-centeredness, from a shallow, self-reliant, self-righteous, works-based “faith.”  He’s been delivering me from myself.

In the heat of the desert He is infusing my heart with His, my character and mind, soul and spirit, with His.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:20-23

One day when I stand before Jesus, I’ll see all He’s done for me, the godly character He worked into me that I never could have learned with a healthy body.

He may choose to deliver you a different way.  He knows what each of us needs. He is as much a personal God as He is loving and forgiving and compassionate.

If you’re in a desert now, be strong and courageous.  He’s with you.  And He will deliver you safely, whole and completed, to the Promised Land.

Sunday Praise – Psalm 21:13

Posted on by Dorci

 

Be exalted in your strength, Lord;
we will sing and praise your might.

Psalm 21:13

Father, may we take with us into the week a remembrance of your great power, a power that moves mountains and overcomes obstacles, that breathes life where there was none, that makes a way where there was no way, that destroys strongholds, and sets us on a firm foundation of truth and love and joy.  We praise you, LORD, for your great and mighty strength, and we ask that all we do would be done in your power by your Spirit. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.