Holding on to the Rock and the Beloved

I know it’s been a while since I blogged but between life and school I haven’t had time.  I’ve wanted to share this one for a while.  This is something that hit me while I was in the prayer room a few weeks ago.  Just a little bit of a back-story, one of the things that I like to do when I read Scriptures is….  I try to find images of Jesus.  For example, every time the right hand of God is mentioned its giving us a characteristic of Jesus.  Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and Psalm 16:11 tells us that “at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  Or like Psalm 145:18, “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.”  Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way, THE TRUTH, and the life.”  One of the reasons that I like to do this is because Psalm 27:4, talks about gazing upon His beauty.  Because so many of us fall into the trap of navel gazing, we look at our lives and we see how off it is from the Scriptures.  And constantly trying to make our lives match what we read.  But our gaze never leaves ourselves.  And this is what Jesus meant when He rebuked the Pharisees.  When He said in John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”  And so since these words testify of Him, we must pray and ask the Holy Spirit where He is in the Scriptures.  This is known as the beholding/becoming principle.  We behold Him in Scripture to therefore become like Him in life.  But if we navel gaze then we are beholding ourselves and therefore continue to become more like ourselves rather than Christ. 

Okay, enough of that!  Moving on….

I was reading through the Book of Acts and in chapter 2, Peter is preaching to the multitude about Jesus.  He is showing them how the Scriptures have testified about Christ.  In verse 25, Peter quotes Psalm 16:8, “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.”  Now this jumped out at me, the fact that the right hand was mentioned.  I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit why that was being highlighted because this was not God’s right hand, its David’s right hand being mentioned.  I didn’t get an answer.  So I just highlighted it and moved on.  I continued reading all the way through Chapter 3.  In this chapter, the first story is about Peter and John going to pray and there was a lame man sitting at the temple gates.  Then verse 7 jumped out at me, it says, “And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.”  Now here the right hand again jumped out at me and I asked the question, "Why did Luke make it a point to tell me that Peter grabbed him by the right hand?"  He could have just as easily said, that he grabbed him by the hand to paint the same picture but instead he draws our attention to the right hand.  So again, I asked the Holy Spirit, What’s the point?  What’s the purpose?  Then I was reminded of Acts 2 where Peter quotes Psalm 16:8b, “For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.”  When Peter grabbed the lame man by the right hand and pulled him up, verse 7 tells us that “immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.”  He now has a firm foundation to stand on.  He will not be shaken.  

Now of course, the man is rejoicing, leaping, running and then verse 11 caught my attention.  It says, “Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John…”  This bothered me because then the question comes to mind, if he is healed then why is he holding on to Peter and John?  Then the Lord reminds me of Psalm 63:8, “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.”  Now this struck me and more of the verse was unpacked.  So for this I have to back up again to reiterate.  Going back to Act 3:4-5, “Peter said, “Look at us.”  So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.”  Then Psalm 16:8, “I foresaw the Lord always before my face.”  And then Peter takes him by the right hand and immediately his feet and ankles are strengthened.  Psalm 16:8 “For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.” 

(Side Note: Just in case that you’re not convinced that this is pointing to Jesus.  The book of Acts shows us how Jesus was moving through the body of Christ or the “Church”.  And to add to this, think of what Jesus called Peter, “The Rock” Deut.32:4 says, “He is the Rock”)

The Rock, Jesus, was at his right hand and because the man was holding onto the Rock, he is no longer shaken, he has a firm foundation.  Then in verse 11, where the man is holding onto Peter and John.  John was also known as the Beloved disciple.  So here this man, is holding onto the Rock and the Beloved.  Which bring us to Psalm 63:8, “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.”  Jesus upholds us in intercession (Hebrews 7:25, Luke 22:32). 

 

So the next question would be what does it look like to hold onto the Rock and the Beloved so that we are not shaken?  To hold on to the Rock is to read God’s Word and take hold of His promises.  “For all of God’s promises are Yes and Amen!”  ( 2 Cor. 1:20)  And we need to ask God to give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, so that we could see how much we lack belief in this.  For example, so many of us pray and ask God to be with us throughout the day or on a journey.  However, this is a prayer that really can’t be answered.  Because He has already promised us that He would never leave us nor forsake us.  So, if God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us, what kind of answer are we expecting of Him?  This prayer is sort of counterproductive in a way.  Psalm 145:13b, “The LORD is faithful to all His promises.”  So instead of asking Him to be with us, let us quote the Scripture to remind ourselves and pray it back to Him, thanking Him that He has promised to never leave us, nor forsake us, regardless of the feelings because we do not walk by our feelings.  I myself have been guilty of asking Him to be with me, however I am thankful despite of my lack of understanding that He is faithful and just as 2 Tim. 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”  

The next question would be, What does it mean to hold onto the Beloved?  Well, when you’re in love with someone you long to be with that person and you talk for long hours.  We do this with Christ through prayer.  You long to gaze upon your beloved.  We do this through meditation of the Word.  Then Jesus tells us in Matthew 9:15, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”  Jesus here connects longing with fasting.  Fasting is a natural heart response because of your desire to be with Him.  It is not something done out of duty but out of love because He is our Bridegroom.  As we do these two things holding onto His promises and fostering that life of prayer, fasting and meditation of the Word, The Lord begins to build a strong foundation within us.  It is like a rod of iron dropped within our spine.  And nothing will shake us because He is at our right hand and as we cling to him He will uphold us with His right hand because He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.

Poverty of spirit

2011 has come and gone, and we are in awe of God’s faithfulness!  It was truly a difficult year, but without regrets. 

 

We recently got back from visiting friends in Arkansas, and in one of our visits I was asked a question; “If you had to sum up your whole year, what would you say?”  I didn’t have to think very long on this, I answered, “Poverty of spirit.”  What do I mean?  Well, for one of my final papers I had to write on Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount.  I was doing a word study and I started with the beatitudes of course, and each one was truly smacking me because I could see how God had been dealing with us throughout the year to birth these things within us.  I mean, I could draw so many lessons from everything we have gone through!  But, there was an underlying lesson in everything and it is also the foundation of the entire sermon:

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5:3)

The definition of the word “poor” in Greek is; reduced to beggary, destitute of wealth, influence, position, honor, helpless, powerless to accomplish an end.

There is more, but you get the point.  This struck me!  Out of everything we had been going through God was making me aware of my poverty, my inability to accomplish anything within of myself.  Constantly reducing me to the point of beggary, showing me that my faith isn’t a “crutch” like some may call it but rather my wheel chair!  

When was the last time we came before the Lord begging, not for something we wanted or needed Him to do, but rather in realization of our GREAT need for Him just because of who He is in relation to who we are?  I am not talking about accepting Him as our savior, but rather the fact that we need Him to simply walk out this life He has called us too.  Let’s say you're standing in front of a window looking out at the winter cold.  You see the people outside shoveling snow, when someone comes in to get warm and makes the statement, "MAN!  It’s cold outside!" and you respond, "Yes, I know."

But in all honesty you don't really know, you just made a logical deduction of the facts before you.  It's the winter season, there is snow outside, people are dressed for winter, so therefore logically it's cold, but you don't have a firsthand experience of how truly cold it is.

It's the same with poverty of spirit, we know that God can heal the sick, part the Red Sea, knows more about us than we do and He has Genesis 1 on His resume, so because I can't do any of those things, then yes, I am poor in spirit and I need Him.  But many of us haven't had a firsthand encounter of how depraved we are, how powerless we are to change anything of ourselves, how truly poor we are.

We must ask the Lord to show us how poor we are, because until we come into contact with that, we will never be able to do any of the other beatitudes let alone anything else the Bible commands.  It all starts with the first beatitude, we can't be meek without being poor, we can't be pure in heart without being poor, we can't inherit the kingdom of heaven without being poor (Matt. 5:3).

This isn't to give an excuse to lay back and say' "well I can't do anything God has to do it."  No, we can't do God's part and He won’t do ours.  Our part is an active surrendering to Him daily, to “pick up our cross and follow Him.”

"And He said to all, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it."  (Luke 9:23-24)

I can’t tell you how many times the Lord had me on my face crying out.  I felt like a bumbling idiot at times, (see blog Wait for the mailman!!! for example), and when I final got to the point where I realized and confessed that I couldn’t fix or change anything then God began to direct me.  (see blog, I want to be like Mary)

He told me to live my life leaning hard into Him.  He showed me, the less I pray the more it’s a declaration to Him that I can do “this” in my own strength and the more I prayed was a declaration to Him of how much I needed Him.  Once I exhausted all of my plans and ideas I turned to Him, if only we would turn to Him to begin with without any plan “B’s”.  Because as long as we have a plan “B”, God will let us use plan “B”.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.  Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil.  It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.”  (Proverbs 3:5-8)

Isn’t it interesting that in just four verses He tells us twice not to lean on ourselves?  Wasn’t that kind of the first sin to begin with, to think that MY “knowledge of good and evil”, MY definition of what is right and wrong, over His? 

God wants our complete undivided trust and attention.  It’s the same thing the Israelites struggled with, they worshiped other gods because that was their plan “B”.  They trusted in God but wanted to “play it safe”.  “Yes we will trust in God, but just in case He doesn’t come through, we will worship this Asherah Pole for fertility and the life of our children.”  (Exodus 20:3, 1 Kings 14:15)

It wasn’t so much that Israel wanted to do demon worship, they just wanted a better quality of life.  Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly demonic forces behind idol worship, but that wasn’t their focus.  Kind of makes me wonder how God feels about all of our “just in case plans”?  Or what kind of demon worship we’re unintentionally involved in?

I’m not saying we need to get rid of anything, I’m not God, take it up with Him.  I know what I needed to get rid of, and I’m still in the process of “cleaning house”.  But just a thought, does the thought of having to give up your insurance, retirement, savings or whatever you have that might be a god before Him, your plan “B”, leave you feeling a little reduced to beggary, destitute of wealth, influence, position, honor, helpless, powerless to accomplish an end.  Kind of hurts doesn’t it.  (See blog, What is your focus?)

God was constantly reminding me about the seed that fell among the thorns and was warning me that I was allowing the cares of this life to choke me out (Matthew 13:22).  There were even times that because of my finances, I would allow fear to creep in.  God took me to Mark 4 and what leaped off the page was, “He said to His disciples, “Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”  (see blog, Faith)

God wants our complete undivided faith, trust, and attention, and in order to do that He had to show me that I couldn’t rely on my plan “B’s”.  To live life leaning hard into Him, is to be in constant prayer and not moving until….. 

Prayer isn’t an addition to our walk with Christ, it is our life line to our walk with Christ.  When the disciples came to Jesus in Luke 11, they didn’t ask Him to teach them how to preach, teach, do miracles, or how to run board meetings, have better finances or 10 steps to a better marriage.  They asked, “Lord, teach us to pray….”  They connected the dots, that in order to live as Jesus lived and to preach, teach and do miracles as He did, they needed to pray as He prayed.

Prayer and reading the Word are essential, throw in some fasting and you are tenderizing your heart and increasing your capacity to receive more of Him, from Him.  To pick up our cross daily and deny ourselves is to actively surrender our own will and conform to His.  But we can only do this with His help.  I know that sounds like a contradiction.  We must do it; but He must because we can’t.  It’s a divine tension that we live in.

   “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.”  Psalm 63:8

Are we holding on, or is He holding us?  We must cling to Him in prayer, fasting, and reading of His word.  Because we are too poor to accomplish anything within ourselves.

I want to close with this story of a father who took his son to the carnival.

A father took his son to the carnival, and once there the father realized why he hated the carnival.  He couldn’t stand rides that spin!  Of course, his son wanted to get on the merry-go-round, and being a good dad he takes him.  The father puts his son on a horse and stands next to him.  The man that controls the ride told the father that he couldn’t stand, but had to sit on one of the horses.  And of course, the horse he sits on is one that moves.  As the ride is spinning and going up and down, the father begins to turn pale and feel sick.  The controller saw him, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him to come where he was standing, in the center.  Once there the father began to feel better.

The ride controller didn’t stop the ride from spinning and going up and down, he just pulled the dad to the center, where there was peace.  We are often stuck on the outer edges of our circumstances feeling all the waves and the spinning. We feel sick and can’t find our way out.  We can’t stop our circumstances nor can we change it.  If we would just pray and set our gaze upon Him and not the waves, draw close to the center, close to the One controlling the ride.  We will find a peace that passes our understanding.

Can-Openers In Training!

Dear Friends,

Since the last time that I blogged, I have completed a year and a half of Bible College.  We have seen the Lord move in many ways.  In some areas, we have been blown away as to how God has shown Himself faithful.  Just the fact that we have been here an entire year without a source of income is a miracle in itself.  The Lord has sustained us this whole year.  Maira has been taking care of our children.  She also has been working at the Children’s Equipping Center on Saturday nights and has become a part of the IHOP Latino worship team.  We have seen the children growing in the Lord.  It’s amazing what they can process and learn. 

Two years ago, the Lord called us to Kansas City, Missouri but we were not sure why.  We just knew that we needed to go.  We obeyed and came in December 2010.  Since the beginning of this year, we have been through very intense training.  Not just through school but life in general.  We have asked often what this is all about.  The Lord has been showing us small glimpses as to where this is leading.  He has told us that we are to be His can-openers.  What does this mean?  He explained that, He would send us to dark, oppressed regions and through the power of prayer, His spoken Word, and the fasted lifestyle.  We would partner with Him in tearing down strongholds, causing the hard places to open up and allowing His Holy Spirit to pour in.  Once He revealed this to us, we understood why He brought us to IHOP-KC.

The International House of Prayer’s core vision and values are Intercession, Holiness of heart, Offerings to the Poor and Prevailing Faith.  Which is what the Lord has had us living out.  Our roles here include 24 hours of intercession a week, raising our children in these visions and values, learning the structure of the prayer & worship sets, the structure of the prayer room in general, and continuing training at IHOPU (International House of Prayer University). 

The training here at IHOP has been very intense but worth every moment.  The Lord has called our family to serve Him full time here in Kansas City.  In order for us to give ourselves fully to this, we need to raise a team of friends that would link arms with us in this journey through prayer and financial support.  Would you link arms with us?  Would you prayerfully ask the Lord what is your role in this?  I will be getting in touch with you soon once you have had time to pray.  I look forward to speaking with you.  Thank you so much for reading this.

Blessings, 

Eli and Maira Morell