Early this morning I asked the Lord what He wanted for this week’s post. When He impressed me to pull out a journal from nearly 21 years ago, I was stunned. And then when He impressed me to put out the following entry, I was even more stunned – and to be honest, rather hesitant for though I had not reviewed this journal entry for some time, nevertheless I remembered it well and to me, it’s very personal.
But the Lord made abundantly clear that this message was not just for me, but for every devoted disciple of His, particularly in these days, twenty-one years after He spoke it to me. So….here goes.
August 21, 1998: While in England on a preaching trip
This morning, as I look out the window to a typically lovely English garden, I sense the Lord’s impression to pick up my journal and wait on Him.
Over the next several minutes, I heard in my spirit:
“Since I have called you to be like Me in your spirit, I will draw you into a life of crucifixion and put such demands of obedience upon you, that I will not allow you to simply follow what others do. You will wonder why other good people do things that I will not allow you to do.
Other Christians and ministers who appear to be very effective may promote themselves, work schemes or pull strings to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you do, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from Me as to make you deeply penitent.
Others may be allowed to succeed in making great amounts of money, or have many luxuries, but I will be your daily supply because I want you to have something far better than gold – a helpless dependence on Me so that I may provide your needs from My unseen treasury.
Others may be honored and put forward, while you remain in the background for the choice and fragrant fruit of My Spirit is best produced in the shade.
I will let others become great while you remain small. I will let others get the credit for what they do for Me, but you will work hard while others get the credit for what you have done, in order that humility may grow and increase in you.
My Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you with a jealous love and will convict you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, things which appear small but are the very building blocks of learning to live by My Spirit.
So make up your mind that I am your King, your Lord and the Lover of your soul, and I have the absolute right to do as I please with My very own. I will not explain everything to you; at times you will be perplexed, puzzled, even dismayed at My dealings with you.
But know this, just as you take Me at My Word, I also take you at your word. You have asked Me to conform you into My image and that is precisely what I intend to do.
Settle it forever that by submitting yourself to Me, I am now in charge. My Spirit has the right to lead you, to tell you when to speak and when to be quiet, what to say and what not to say, where to go and where not to go.
My Spirit is a Master Teacher to school you in My ways and transform you into My image. Be thankful for His guardianship over you and resist not His management of your life, for in so doing, you will find the very vestibule of heaven.
Press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:14
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Reading this again in order to share it with you, I am deeply challenged, just as I was on that day back in 1998.
If it speaks to you as it does to me,
don't resist His Spirit but let us all submit to Him
that He might do in and through us whatever He wills.