"The Unknown God"

I believe that I need to begin to keep a record of the words that God gives to me that are for His people. This last Sunday as I spent time in prayer and worship God spoke this word to me and made it very clear that it is a word for the Body of Christ. I want to write it down as best that I can remember it before it fades. I know that God's word is powerful and penetrating, so my prayer is that as you read this you will be convicted and will ask the Holy Spirit, what am I to do?" and then allow yourself to be filled with the Power of the Holy Spirit to "do" what it is He tells you!
A Word from God-
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]

29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Now I recognize that we know our God, but because our God is infinite, beyond our finding out, indescribable, our thoughts cannot contain Him, we have settled for a God that can be described and understood. We have brought Him down to our finite minds and believe that that is all that He is. In this we have grieved the Holy Spirit. How have we grieved the Holy Spirit, you ask?

Think of someone that you love dearly, as a mother loves her child. Now imagine the grief when that child chooses to settle for so much less than what that mother knows is possible. She has gifts and blessings that she wants to bestow on her child, but they are never claimed, in fact they are rejected as not worthwhile, perhaps not cool enough or exciting enough.

This is how we have grieved the Holy Spirit. We have denied Him, we have rejected the outpouring of His Life and His Power in our lives. We have instead chosen to live out of our own strength. If we truly believed what we say we believe, that God is in our midst, when we gather is His name the doors could not contain Him! People would be clammering to get a taste fo this Wonderful God that we serve. But we don't really believe that He is in our midst. We are not excited and overcome by His Presence. We sit together not even engaged, complacent and dare I say, bored? My heart and His is broken by our apathy!

To live a life in the Spirit is to live a life that is bigger, greater, more powerful than anythingwe can do in our own strength.

Revelations 12 tells us how we are to overcome the enemy, the accuser of the brethern-
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.

The blood of the lamb-this work has been done it has been accomplished, Praise God!
The word of their testimony-we need to open our mouths and tell of the great things God has done for us! This is ongoing, daily even.
We need to love God more than we love our own lives! We cannot do this without God moving on us in a Powerful way. We must confess, we love our lives, we do not want to sacrifice when God tells us to move, to act, to obey.

How do we move close tthis kind of relationship, this kind of intimacy with God? It is very simple , but extremely difficult. Every time you hear God speak and tell you to act, do what He says-no matter what it costs you, no matter how others might ridicule you, no matter how much it hurts.Do not start that dialogue that says, "that wasn't really God", "I don't need to give up that thing, or call that person, or speak that word". Every time you say yes and do, you move closer to that intimate place with God, more Power will be bestowed upon you and more of His Grace will be available to you. Every time you say no, I cannot, you will move farther away, and His voice becomes less audible, and confusion reigns.

So today, chose life!