Friday, January 13, 2012

An Empty Vessel...

2 Timothy 2:20-22...


"In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart."


I want to be an empty vessel again! Completely empty. My life is a blank canvas. There is no past, no future, only the NOW. I just want to be with you, NOW... I give up anything and everything that you have ever led me into, now... so that I can do just that. Be with You. Now.

I want to be empty so that only You can fill me. Fill me, fill me, fill me to overflowing so that if there IS anything else in me, it will just be stirred up and overflow out of me...



Here in the Fire in the Night internship at Kansas City, that is my prayer... Lord, fill me up so much that all else will be spilled out... everything else is worthless except this one thing - to KNOW You! to GAZE upon Your beauty!! I want to be completely empty of everything except You!

Now this is a dangerous prayer because as I have well been finding out, when the other stuff gets stirred up... it spills out... and it can be pretty messy. God doesn't just do things behind closed doors. He does things in front of everyone else too. Lucky I have a GREAT family of roommates, interns, leaders and friends here! Also 35 hours in the prayer room every week doesn't hurt!! Plus 14 hours of class and 3 hours of church... Not to mention small groups (which I LOVE!) Thank you Jesus!!  Seriously, when you are in an environment specifically set up for engaging with the Lord that much of the time, it really does help with purging everything else out.

When I was first here back in July '11, I had not much of an idea what IHOP was all about. I came because God spoke to me to come. My church doesn't have any connections with this place and so I would check every single thing that they said and make sure it was in the bible! I have to admit my heart was a bit closed off because I wanted to make sure that they weren't some weird group of people teaching weird things. Yes. So in the prayer room one night, God started showing me the colour yellow. First, I was inside a yellow slide like the ones you find in McDonalds playgrounds! Then he reminded me of the yellow safety house signs that we were taught about in Primary school in Queensland. Ima Safety House was this yellow house-person... We were taught that if we were walking to and from school, and found ourselves in a situation that seemed unsafe (think car pulling up next to school children offering them a ride), all we had to do was look for a house with the yellow safety house sign on the mailbox and we could run in there and be with safe people.




So, God told me that here at IHOP I was as safe as I ever was at Planetshakers. This time round (2nd track of internship) I found that I was coming into it ready to dive deep, not only dive deep but dive headfirst, into everything God had for me. I felt like I was totally ready to trust the leadership that God has put over me here and just go for it - surrender to God completely and to trust and honour His appointed authorities...

Here is a quote from one of my teachers:
"I want your hearts to burn - that's the goal... but I also want you to cognitively get it." (get it in and from scripture and get it with our minds)

Oh that our hearts would burn for You Jesus!!! and oh that you would help us to get it... because we need it :)

From my journal - during an intercession set for Israel (yes, God likes to interrupt us sometimes. We want to be set in our ways and do everything according to a time schedule but sometimes God just wants to do heart surgery...) This was during one of those times where the gunky stuff was being stirred up. By the way I am not sharing this because I don't value the secret place with Jesus. I am not sharing this to show off myself. I am sharing this, because I know through the place of my vulnerability, my friends (and any other randoms who read this) who may be going through similar things are encouraged and helped... so, overabundant blessings to you!

"God. I want you to break me... Even if you need to shatter me completely. I want and I welcome whatever it takes... I want to be remade as a noble vessel. An empty vessel. For YOUR purposes... I need it. I cry out for it. Because I want to contain You... I'm so tired and over change. But I know I need more. My heart is open for whatever you want. Give me grace to be open God... You hem me in... and it is hard to kick against the goads... Give me grace God. Help me Holy Spirit. and give me JOY."

Later, in the soaking chairs, He said "I love you. I delight in you. Why would I shatter you?"
He is holding my heart...
In all gentleness and caring...
But still Lord, I want the breaking, because I KNOW you hold my heart. I want to be made perfect. You will complete what You started!

I love my God.

That is all.


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The Israelites in the Desert.


Hebrews 3:7

"So, as the Holy Spirit says:
'Today, if you heart His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for 40 years saw what I did.

That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' So I declared an oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.


But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called TODAY, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:

'TODAY, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.'

Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?


So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief."

Another key:

Disobedience - even in our hearts - hearts are VERY important to the Lord - legally opens ourselves up for the spirit of the air (the enemy) to work in our lives.