God is Working in My Heart

When I wrote the last post, I had no idea there would be a part 2, but here it is, only a few days later.  The fear that I was so relieved to step away from last week, when the Lord made it so clear that He is working in the midst of this economic crisis, had returned.  With every news announcement and so many personal conversations, I was becoming increasingly more anxious about what is happening.  This time, it seemed like it was much more personal, while before the fear was more for the nation as a whole.  Much as I tried to remind myself of what He had shown me last week, I wasn’t staying above the fears.  Enter the wonderful Holy Spirit!

As I sat down to read the Bible, I was led to Hebrews 12, and continued through chapter 13, as well.  When I came to 13:5, I knew why He had me in this passage.  ”Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money [including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions] and be satisfied with your present [circumstances and with what you have]; for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support.  [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)!  [Assuredly not!]”  My first response was, “Wow!”  Obviously, the Lord didn’t think we would get it with just a single statement of His promise of provision, so He declared it repeatedly and in various ways so that we might actually believe Him.  My faith needed more than just reading it silently would do, so I declared this Word out loud for myself and my family.  (Romans 10:17)

Then the real work began.  The Lord pointed out the beginning of the verse, highlighting in my heart the part about being free from the love of money and being satisfied with what I have now.  This tied right in to the verse from Matthew 6 where Jesus said we cannot serve God and mammon.  I have been so quick to declare the Lord is my Provider, and the Lord is my Source – and He is.  But I’ve done that with such assurance, not because of His Word of promise, but because we had some money saved.  I was deceived into thinking that my trust was in the Lord, when it was really in the bank and the investment firms, and wall street, etc.  Somehow, once the provision from God has come into our possession, my trust moved over to the provision, rather than remaining with the Provider.  It was easy to stay in this deception, declaring that everything was going to be provided by God, as long as there were no problems with our mammon.  Once it began rapidly to drop in value, the deception was exposed, and it was so ugly!

Now that you’ve seen the ugliness that the devil was using to try to bring destruction in my life, I want to share a couple of things that the Lord is revealing that prove He is turning it for good.  The first one is that my husband said he was convicted that very day, as well.  Believe it or not, that really excites me, because it shows God is doing a similar work in each of us at the same time.  I also have a sense that God is going to show Himself strong to us in ways we couldn’t imagine before, when we had our eyes on the mammon.

I also see that this was a trap so very easy to step into.  While we have been thankful for the finances the Lord has brought to us, somehow we forgot it was from Him once we had it in hand.  We also forgot about the times we had so much less, and how He brought what was needed every time.  In planning for the future, we forgot to be satisfied with His daily provision and His promise never to leave us helpless or forsake us or let us down or relax His hold on us.  Our eyes moved from Him to His blessings, instead.  It is so clear in Matthew 6:33 that we are to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, because all the things we really need He will provide.  Our eyes are to be so fixed on Him and on seeking Him that none of the things He has provided hold sway over us, whether much or little, growing or shrinking.

I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit loves me enough to remind me of this.  I don’t want anything else to have His rightful place in my heart, or to trust in what I have physically, because I know that it won’t last.  With everything in me, I want to trust my awesome God so totally that I stay in the peace that passes all understanding, rejoicing from the very depths of my heart, regardless of what goes on around me.  I know He is faithful to His Word – even to working it in me by His Spirit.  I can trust Him, even when I don’t understand.  All praise and glory to His name!

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Is This Crisis About His Kingdom?

Does the current economic crisis have you on edge, to put it mildly?  It’s something I’ve been battling for a few weeks now, this sort of edge of fear and anxiety, though I know the perfect love of God casts out all fear.  Yesterday morning, I had a little glimpse of God’s perspective that set me free from that fear – even the edge of it, and I want to pass it along to you.  I want to make clear that I do not have all the answers, all the what-abouts and how does that fit this theology, etc.  I’m just giving you what I was given to understand by the Holy Spirit, and trust that He will help you see it and even more.

I had turned to Matthew 6 in the Amplified Bible to read what we refer to as the Lord’s Prayer, particularly verse 10, where Jesus says, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  How often that has come out of my mouth in prayer and declaration when praying for this nation, and when praying for the body of Christ.  I continued reading in Matthew 6 until I got to verse 24, where I felt like part of the verse practically screamed at me.  Jesus begins this verse by saying, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is trusted in).”  The word cannot was so big to me in that moment, and I saw this as the root problem in our economy.

Jesus spoke very definitely that we cannot serve Him and money, too, yet that is exactly what we have been trying to do.  In His mercy, it has been allowed for a time; but now in His mercy, He is exposing it so we will return to serving only Him – and all as a result of praying and declaring “Your kingdom come, and Your will be done right here in Your church and in this nation!”  He led us to pray it because He wants to move in mighty ways here, but He didn’t show us just how He was going to work it out.  (Sometimes, it is just better that we don’t know all the steps ahead of time!)

In that moment of revelation, any power of fear over me in these times was ended, praise the Lord!  Though I still don’t know how He’s going to complete it, I know the Greater One lives in me, and He is fully trustworthy, even when things are in upheaval and seemingly turned topsy-turvy for a time.  I couldn’t help but exclaim Romans 11:33 & 34 Amplified, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unfathomable (inscrutable, unsearchable) are His judgments (His decisions)!  And how untraceable (mysterious, undiscoverable) are His ways (His methods, His paths)!  For who has known the mind of the Lord and who has understood His thoughts, or who has [ever] been His counselor?”  In God’s infinite wisdom, He knows what is needed to return His people to Him.  When we do as 2 Chronicles 7:14 says – humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways (serving mammon), then He will fulfill His part of that promise – hear from heaven, forgive our sin, and heal our land.

No, I don’t know the specifics of how God will heal our economy, but I know He has promised to do so when we turn away from serving money to serving the One True God.  He will forgive us, helping us change so that His kingdom will be made known on earth (through us, glory to God!) as it is in heaven!