Hope Eternal

I had a comment on my last blog post from  another blogger, Laurie Collett .  In it she mentioned, regarding the Lord,  'without Him we can do nothing, but with Him, all things are possible'.

Part of my response to Laurie's comment spoke of my opening my Bible to read that morning straight to Psalm 20, where I had previously underlined verse 7 which reads  'Some boast of chariots and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the Lord our God.'

 

I have to say that I realized some time after that this verse coincides with what the Lord spoke to me regarding my long trial which began many years ago, where He spoke to me personally through Isaiah ch. 31 vs.1-3 with the words

 ' Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord! Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of them that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and  not spirit.'

 

I know absolutely that the Lord is using this verse from Psalm 20 to remind and encourage me to continue to trust solely in Him to bring me through this trial, (spoken of in one of my previous posts http://www.lighthousevision.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/increase-my-faith-in-you-lord.html) regardless of the timing of it, and I have to say that I have total peace through His words enlightened to me by the Holy Spirit.  We are in a spiritual battle and the war is not with flesh and blood, and these scriptures to me have to be discerned spiritually. Egypt speaks spiritually of the world and the chariots and horses speak spiritually of worldly strength.

 

Because of all that is happening in my life at this moment I feel I would like to share in this post  something I wrote years ago regarding 'HOPE'.

Some years ago a relative of mine sent me a poem he had written.  It was about feelings and thoughts during an interview, which started off with the subject being hopeful of being accepted and which ended with these hopes being dashed. 

I noticed that each of the three verses of the poem had a specific letter at the beginning of each line.  These letters ran in the sequence of DSU.   As I looked at these letters a sentence formed in my mind:- 
'Don't Sink Under',
 
Then these words came into my mind:- 

Don't sink under when things do not go
according to your own plan

for each of your days is written in the book
of One far greater than man 

I thought about these words and how we can feel that things may be going wrong for us because something that we hoped for and expected to happen does not happen, or maybe does not happen at the time that we want or expect it to happen.  Yet, how do we know that maybe our own plans were meant to fail to allow God's plans to come to pass in our lives..... and maybe at His perfect timing
  

Jesus' plan for Peter to walk on water was not achieved through Peter's own efforts.  It was achieved through keeping his eyes on Jesus, not on the circumstance he found himself in.  Jesus says that in the world we have tribulation, in Him we have peace, ' These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.' John ch. 16 v.33  so we should not let tribulation worry us to the extent that we sink within the circumstance.   We must keep our eyes upon Jesus, and the word that has been spoken to us as we seek Him.

 

A few days ago I hurt my back through picking up a bag of top soil to take out into the garden  in order to plant some iris in tubs.  I was ticked off by my husband who said I should have come to ask him to carry it for me instead of trying to do it myself.  It spoke spiritually to me immediately.  How many times do we as Christians try to carry, and endeavour to tackle, our earthly burdens ourselves instead of going to the One of whom we are advised to 'cast our burdens upon' as in:-
 

Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.  Psalm ch. 55 v.22,

 

'Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established Proverbs ch. 16 v.3

 

'casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter ch. 5 v. 7

This is a little poem that I wrote that spoke comfort to me regarding trusting the Lord instead of myself in these situations:-

Trust
Do not worry, do not fear
let your heart be still
For who on earth of mortal man
can always know God's will
But this we know, who worship Him
by faith shall live the just
For then we see the power of
The One in whom we trust

' You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon You, because he trusts in You.  Trust in the Lord forever for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.'    Isaiah ch.26 vs 3,4

The more we trust in the Lord the more our faith in Him will grow.  What is faith?  Is it not ' 'the substance of things hoped for'? Hebrews ch. 11 v.1

HOPE

CAUSE FOR HOPE

Psalm 142 says that when our spirit is faint the Lord knows our way, that when we cry to Him saying that He is our refuge, our portion in the land of the living, and ask for deliverance from an enemy ( remembering that our enemies are spiritual, not flesh and blood) too strong for us, He will deal bountifully with us.

STRENGTH OF HOPE

Hope does not cease to be because we are weak in faith, unable to believe or fail to hold on to what God has spoken. It is merely hidden from our view by shadows of our frail humanity.  Hope is eternal, as God is eternal.  Its fire cannot be quenched, though ashes of mortality be cast upon its coals when floods of fear and pain block our vision of God's power. Yet still its embers, burning bright, may be rekindled as breath of love divine once more fans flames of hope within the heart of man, when written word and Spirit mind recall the plan and purpose of creator God and His Son.  Then shadows sinister and cold recede and disappear, as soul of man unites with love of God, and conquers once again that which seeks to cause doubt.

SOURCE OF DOUBT
An 'enemy too strong for us' can be many things.  Sickness, loneliness, debt, jealousy, covetousness or guilt are just a few examples.

DEALING WITH DOUBT
If we are afraid of an enemy our fear will usually cause us to run from that enemy, and it will give chase until we tire of running, and it will overpower us.
When Jehoshaphat was told 'A great multitude is coming against you from Edom'  2 Chronicles ch. 20 v.2  we are told; 'He feared, and set himself to seek the Lord,' v.3 
So too, we who are spiritual Israelites, though we fear, may set ourselves to seek the Lord in the same way that Jehoshaphat did, and ask for help. 
The Lord's answer to Jehoshaphat through the prophet was 'Fear not and be not dismayed at this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's'. 2 Chronicles ch. 20 v.15  Will the answer not be the same for us?

This is a prayer that I wrote for myself, I make it a prayer for any and all who choose it also to be a prayer for themselves.



 Hope Eternal
                                                                                                    

Oh hope eternal, flame of God,
disposer of all strife
with fuel of power, Spirit borne,
create in me new life
Bring change of mind in circumstance,
when all around is night
cause doubt in heart to be dispelled
 by brightness of Your light
Oh hope eternal, love divine
create in me new heart
that line of safety.... Spirit cord
might never break apart

When each part is working properly

For the last few days something I wrote quite a few years ago has been coming into my mind.  It was an article called 'Rapture'.  I thought I might put it up as a post on my blog, but was not sure if I had already done so.  I looked it up and realized that I had posted it a couple of years ago.

I have a little gold book by the side of my computer, one of the diaries that I have written in.  I opened it and noticed that the page I had opened to had many of the things written in it that were in the article 'Rapture'.  So I have decided to put up this post, edited,  so that I can re tell in the present time what happened at that time. 


The church that I attended at the time I first wrote this post  is not the church that I attend now, and I have added a few photographs.


Rapture
Several years ago I had a dream in which I was looking at certain stars in the sky.  As I looked at them they appeared to grow in explosive glory, yet were not destroyed.  It was absolutely beautiful.  In the dream my husband was stood nearby and I asked him to look at the stars, but when he looked he saw them as normal stars.  Then some other people came along who were unbelievers, and I asked them to look at the same stars.  They too saw them as normal stars.  A short time after I had the dream I bought some new gold coloured curtains, and when I got them home and went to take them out of the packet I noticed they were called 'Rapture', and that the pattern on them was very much like the exploding stars that I had seen in my dream.  The word 'rapture' means 'to be carried to a state of extreme joy', and that was exactly the state I had been in, watching the stars in my dream. 
 

Soon  after, I went to the church that I was attending at the time and the pastor was saying that he and the family had visited a waterfall in a local park.  Then a lady spoke of waterfalls of wine, the pastor following on speaking of how new wine could not be put into old wineskins but had to be put into new wineskins.  I noticed that the lady who spoke on 'waterfalls of wine' had a dress on with an almost identical pattern to my curtains, only the background colour was brown instead of gold. 
 

I told my son, who had moved to the area recently, that the waterfalls were there, because he had said that when he moved down here from Scotland he wanted to visit many of the waterfalls in the area.  He said he knew of the waterfalls that the pastor had spoken about, and that they were partially man made.  Again I felt that something was being pointed out to me, that the waterfalls that were partially man made and the dress with the brown (representing earthly wisdom) background colour could be speaking spiritually of man's interference with God's word and the Holy Spirit in some way and that if it was, then the Lord would reveal more to me if I prayed and waited.
 

Some time after, I was reading 2 Kings chapter 2 where the men of the city were telling Elisha that the situation of the city of Jericho was pleasant but the water was bad and the land was unfruitful.  Elisha asked for a new bowl and put salt in it.  Then he went to the spring and threw salt in it, and the word of the Lord came to him to say that the water was made wholesome and that neither death nor miscarriage would come from it.

After I had read this I was thinking about sharing my thoughts with the pastor at the church, and I reached for my UCB daily reading book.  When I opened to the reading for the day it was saying that we all have gaps and that the best way to handle the weaknesses was to work together and it was encouraging us to work more together and not to be like  Diotrephes who not only refused to welcome the brethren, but also stopped those who wanted to welcome them.

 

I was about to put up on my front room wall a print of two geese painted originally in watercolour.   I was reminded of a book I have called 'Why geese fly farther than eagles'   The following is a paragraph from that book which reflects to me the way the body of Christ should function as stated in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 16 '....... joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and up builds itself in love.'

'When the head goose grabs the wind, air is displaced, which then rushes up to reclaim its space only to see the smiling face of the bird flying behind, whose wings just happen to be in the downward position - a very dangerous condition, which doesn't last for long, because the upward rush gives them a push, and they're right back up where they belong.  This goose then grabs the air again, causing another upward wind, which lifts the bird behind.  And so it goes on down the line.  So the head goose breaks the wind, and all the rest are carried by him, with very little effort, I've heard, on the part of any one bird.  When the head goose has had enough, he or she simply drops back and depends on another bird for strength when strength is what is lacked.

So that's how I found out how the goose can fly from up north to way down south and back again.  But she cannot do it alone, you see.  It's something that must be done in community.  These days it's a popular notion, and people swell with emotion and pride when they think of themselves on the eagle-side, solitary, self-sufficient, strong.  But we are what we are.  That's something we cannot choose.  Though many would wish to be seen as an eagle, I think God made most like the goose.'
 

That Sunday the pastor of the church that I attended was saying to my friend and myself that if anyone has anything they want to share during the service they have to speak to the appointed convener about it and he will decide whether it should be shared or not.  Does not 1 Corinthians ch. 14 v. 26 say 'What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.'  

A few Sundays previous it was preached in church that if people did not go to the doctors with certain sicknesses they would die. 
I had been trusting in the Lord solely for a particular healing  and when I got home that day I sought the Lord regarding what had been spoken in church and I opened my Bible to read.  On the page in front of me was a verse in Psalm 118 that I had underlined some time previous.  It reads ' I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.'  I asked the Lord if He was speaking this word to me, closed my Bible, and opened to exactly the same page, with the same underlined verse speaking to me.

 

I have to ask, ' If I had asked the Lord this question in church that morning and opened my Bible to this verse twice, would I have been allowed to share this with the church or would the convener have thought that it went against what was being preached regarding 'going to the doctors or dying' and disallowed it, thereby denying this testimony which might have strengthened and encouraged somebody else ?'

 

Surely there can only be one convener in the church, the Holy Spirit, and are we guilty of trying to interfere with His work by bringing in our own rules instead of following the guidelines of the scriptures when we come together. Daniel ch. 2 v.44 reads:- 'And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.'  

 

We must not be afraid of a little 'salt' in case it might offend.  Jesus says that we, as believers, are the salt of the Earth:- “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.  (Matthew ch. 5 v. 13)
  

Why, in my dream, did not my husband or the unbelievers see the full glory of the stars in the heavens?  I could understand why the unbelievers did not see it, but my husband has been baptized and believes in Jesus.  Was he representing somebody who believes but can not see the full glory because he is guided largely by worldly wisdom and knowledge?   Jeremiah ch. 15 v. 16 reads:- 'Thy words were found, and I ate them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.'   
Nehemiah  ch. 8 v. 10 contains the words 'the joy of the Lord is your strength.'

In order to be carried to that 'extreme state of joy',  the word of the Lord has to be our strength.  Then we shall be able to put off the old brown (earthly) wineskins and put on our new gold (Christ like )ones?


Ps.
I have only just recently noticed messages on my computer which say that people have added me to their circles.  My apologies to the people who have done this, but I have no idea what this means.  I shall find out from my daughter in law, who is very good on blogs, and rectify the situation.
God bless to all.


 

I kept my faith though I was greatly afflicted

I have had a few dreams over the last week,  one was on Wednesday night.   I dreamt that Cain from the television soap Emmerdale was flirting with me.   Then I had gone to buy some food at a café and I could not find my money to pay for it.
 

We are told that the scriptures are discerned spiritually and Cain in the Bible represents one who comes to God with an offering of something grown from the earth.   I felt the Lord was pointing out to me not to  allow the carnal mind and its reasoning, which comes from earthly wisdom and knowledge, to seduce me away from the word of the Lord that I believe has been spoken to me regarding my healing, or I could be left poorer spiritually. 

I have recently had my gold keys and chain repaired at the jeweller's.  One key had fallen off, one of the three keys with hearts on alongside the keys which hold the name of Jesus on them.  The hearts to me had represented  Father, Son and Holy Spirit and, although they had all worn a little, I felt the one that had fallen off was representing the Holy Spirit to me because I have been in danger of not holding on to what has been enlightened to me by the Holy Spirit in the scriptures - God's promise to me of healing.  Fortunately the key had fallen off in the house so it was not lost completely.

 

The total cost of the repair was £116 and I was immediately reminded of Psalm 116, which is a Psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from death.  One of the verses which has always spoken to me from this Psalm, and which I felt I was being reminded of as I continue waiting for the promise of my complete healing is verse 10. 'I kept my faith even when I said 'I am greatly afflicted'.

I knew straight away that all things were working together, and that the Lord was encouraging me through the Psalm to keep my faith by holding on to the enlightened word spoken to me, (even though I was greatly afflicted), and warning me through the  dream about Cain not to let thoughts and reasoning growing in  the carnal (earthly) mind rob me of God's promise.

 

  

Recently I bought a pair of trousers and a top while out in a nearby town with my husband, sister and brother in law.  When I got home I went to hang them in my wardrobe and noticed that the label on the trousers had these words on it:- FAITHFUL and TRUE. 

I knew these words were somewhere in the scriptures but was not sure where. I went into my workroom and turned my computer on to look for where these words are.
 

I found that they are written in Revelation ch. 19 v. 11:- 'Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.' 

As I read this verse I looked up from my computer at my white china horse that I had bought while on holiday in Czechoslovakia many years ago.

I believe absolutely nothing is coincidence, and that the Lord knew that I would buy those trousers with that label on, and would have the white horse placed on my shelf above my computer, which would both go together with the scripture in Revelation ch. 19.  (He sees the end from the beginning) 
 
I believe it is all to encourage me to trust wholly in the promise He has given me, that He is Faithful and True, and that  I must believe Him and the word that He gives me as guidance through this trial no matter what the eyes see and the carnal mind tries to argue, just as Abraham believed God no matter what the circumstance appeared to be.
Jesus says in John ch. 14 v. 15 'If you love Me you will keep my commandments. 


So I must endeavour to do what I believe He is telling me to do, and I can only say 'I will love Thee O Lord my strength,' as I make this little song that I wrote some years ago my prayer.

Help me Lord, I'm battle scarred and weary
Satan's hand is much too strong for me
but I know, if You will be my friend by my side,
my old foe will have to turn and flee

Change me Lord according to Your image,
bend me Lord according to Your will
You alone can make me what God wants me to be
take my fears and cause me to be still

For You alone have conquered
You've won the victory
and I can share these blessings
if You're living inside of me

So change me Lord according to Your image
bend me Lord according to Your will
You alone can make me what God wants me to be
take my fears  - and cause me to be still

March 9th

Just to add:- I went to church yesterday and the man who was taking the meeting read out a prophesy that had been written down.  It contained the words 'Faithful and true'.  I shall ask to read the whole prophesy next week, as I believe it is on-going confirmation for me.