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Alone and Afraid

Ivey Rorie On April 2, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 31: 6

“Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.”

This is one of those verses we want to be true. It is also a good verse upon which to test your resolve. Are you a believer? Do you believe this verse is an actual promise from God to you? Can you stand on it? Well, that is the question, isn’t it?

Face it, there are times that despite our spirituality, we just feel alone. Intellectually, we know better. At least we know that the Bible says that God will never leave nor forsake us. Sometimes, though, you look into your spirit, you try to quiet yourself and all you hear is silence. It is in those times we must preach to ourselves and that is exactly what Father told me to do recently in my journaling. He said, “Preach to yourself what you would say to someone else.” That advice and the idea that He is with us all the time has stayed with me a lot lately.

The whole truth is that God cannot leave us even if He wanted to. Of course, you know He wants to be with you 24/7. He said to me, “That has been the point of this whole thing. It’s the reason I sent Jesus to earth.” This brings to my remembrance the promise in John 14: 23, “If anyone loves Me . . . My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” God’s purpose in sending Jesus to earth was so that we could again come into communion with Him. He wanted to establish a community of believers for Himself where He could set up His home within our hearts and be with us forever. Jesus, speaking of the Holy Spirit said, “. . . but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you,” (John 14:16). If He abides in us and with us, how can we ever be apart from Him? Those verses account for the abiding presence of the Father, Jesus and the Spirit. That’s pretty good company.

This should give us GREAT comfort and confidence. Today’s verse is from the Old Testament. How much greater is the good news since Jesus graced the earth. Even back then it is said, “The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed,” (Deuteronomy 31: 8). Why should we be fearful or forlorn? Why should we be depressed or lonely? Our Father, our beloved, is with us every minute of every day. He and His heavenly host even watch over us while we sleep. God gave up Jesus whom He loves so that He can be with us night and day. He is not about to abandon us now after all the work He did to make His home with us.

Jesus said he left his peace here for us (John 14: 27). This verse is only four verses after Jesus said that he and the Father would make their abode with us. Part of that peace, it seems to me, is in knowing that the Holy Trinity is with you all of the time, day and night, at work at home. Whatever you do, wherever you go, they are there, with you. I write this hoping it will help you create more of a “God with me” identity. We need not be afraid or tremble. We can be strong and courageous of whatever tomorrow brings for our Lord and God is with us and goes before us. He will never, for one minute, leave us nor will He ever forsake us. You have a friend, a permanent friend, who, if you will let Him, will be your best friend for all time.

A Ringing Cry

Ivey Rorie On April 1, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Psalm 47: 1 – 2 The Passion Translation

Go ahead and celebrate! Come on and clap your hands, everyone! Shout to God with the raucous sounds of joy! The Lord God Most High is astonishing, awesome beyond words! He’s the formidable and powerful King over all the earth.

I was trying to sense the mood of the author of this psalm and the tone with which he wrote while reading it. One of the footnotes shows that this shout of joy is literally a ringing cry. Imagine, if you will, feeling so overjoyed with who God is your life and the ways He has recently demonstrated His formidable power for you that you want to shout. Imagine being moved to song and exultation.

If you’ve ever been in a church service where the level of praise is celebratory then you know two things. First, it can be a bit daunting in the beginning. Secondly, you can’t help but be drawn to it. There is something about the unfettered yet honest and real celebration of our Lord that is infectious. Even if you are not the type of person who is easily given to dance or joyful expression, you are vicariously involved in others’ unencumbered praise of the Lord.

Think about the author of today’s psalm being the praise leader at church yesterday. What would that have looked like? Clearly, he was full of the revelation of God’s magnificence. Even if you are a hands in your pockets kind of person, you can’t help but be drawn to a celebration of God that is unrestrained and honest. It is hard for some of us to let go and others of us just do not have the words that seem to come so easily to others. Nonetheless, when someone so beautifully expresses what is bottled up in your heart, it is freeing. When someone praises the Father whom you love deeply, it moves your spirit too.

I imagine that David would have embarrassed me in his unconstrained praise of God, the Almighty lover of our souls, but secretly, or not so secretly by now, I admire him for giving expression to his heartfelt passion for God. I am not interested in, and I know you are not either, those people who just want to be the center of attention but it is oh, so nourishing to be in the midst of a group of people who truly love God and who give voice to their praise. We might find ourselves uncomfortable with some of the new music as we rather favor the old hymns but there is something real in those songs and something very honest in the voices that lift them up.

When it comes right down to it, that is what church is to me. Though I can guarantee you I am not the best at praise, I love that feeling when the Holy Spirit starts moving through the congregation. The passion of God is stirred and only a hard heart is not affected. As much as the churches that move in the Spirit of God made me feel like I was having an aneurysm in the beginning, I very quickly joined one. The reason is clear, God was in the house and His presence was so clear and palpable that it was life and breath. Every time the church doors were open, I was there, breathing Him in.

Okay, so I am a hands in the pockets kind of person but I love being immersed in exultant praise for the One I love. I am moved by the words and expressions from people who obviously love the Lord and who give their praise freely. Go into your heart for just a moment today and picture praise and worship with this author. Imagine what he must have felt in his heart as he penned these words. Imagine what it might be like to give yourself over to all the love and appreciation you have in your heart for our beloved Father and Mighty God. Can you touch those tender emotions? What would you like to say to Dad if you could be with Him today? What if, instead of asking Him a bunch of questions, what if you just looked upon His beauty and thanked Him? How long would it take to thank Him for all He has done for you? Hey, don’t leave out making the planet so you would have a place to live. If you begin there, I think you will find lots to be thankful for, but then, just look upon His face, the glory of who He is and just praise Him for who He is rather than what He has done. He is glorious and worthy of adoration. He is worthy of hero worship. He is life, love, breath, hope, and joy. Open your heart, if not your mouth, and let your worship fill you.

Open the Window

Ivey Rorie On March 29, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Malachi 3: 10

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”

There is much talk about giving to the church, but it seems to me that there is little understanding. I suppose it is just one of those uncomfortable subjects. Well, let’s just look at God’s words and see what He says about it.

This one little verse says quite a bit. It contains both a command and a promise. God would that you would pay attention to both parts. The “tithe” is one tenth of your income which was supposed to be given to the church for the maintenance of those who minister: ministers, priests, etc. This tenth part is also used to minister to the needs of others. So in old times, as now, it is used to support the ministry so that the ministry can continue to perform its function. Now this ten percent was a command of God, not a suggestion.

The part of this verse that I wish to bring your attention to, though, is the part which contains the promise. God promises to pour out the substance of heaven on to you. He promises to pour out a blessing so huge that you cannot even contain it. That is what overflow is; more than you can contain. Now what do you suppose you might do with that overflow? You are probably going to bless others. So God has great interest in keeping you overflowing so that all may be blessed. Eventually those who have been blessed abundantly by your giving also mature in Christ and they begin to give. First they begin with their tithe. Then as the blessings of God overflow, they also become great givers in the Kingdom. Then their giving allows other people to be reached and blessed. I guess you see how this works.

What I want you to see is that God has a vested interest in prospering you. If you have proved that you can be trusted with money, He wants to give you more so that you can continue to bless others. He is adamant on this point and here is where I think most American Christians lose God. He is so resolute that He invites, nay orders us to test Him in this. He commands us to hold Him accountable to His word regarding our giving. Many Christians want to give without any expectation of receiving. That sounds good and I think comes from a kind place in their hearts but it is just not biblical. Satan is the only one who does not want you to reap from your giving, not God. Satan doesn’t want you to reap a reward from your giving because He knows you are going to turn around and give some away again. He can’t have that. If you keep that up you are going to set people free. You are going to cause great damage in his kingdom.

God wants you to hold His feet to the fire and require a thirty, sixty or hundred fold return from Him. Look, even dirt gives you a return if you plant a seed. Isn’t God much more rewarding than a patch of dirt. I know that you give a gift out of the kindness of your heart. And that is a great thing. God wouldn’t change that. He just wants you to understand that what is a gift to you and probably to the recipient as well, is a seed to Him and He wants you to expect a yield. He wants you to sow your gifts towards greater gifts so that He can do more for you. No matter what we want to believe, He cannot give us what we will not receive. So keep up your generosity. Even increase your giving but in your giving expect God to do something great. Require Him to keep His word to you. In His own words, “test me now in this.” You will not lose your holiness by expecting a return from Him and you will gain a new level of obedience. As you reap, listen to Him and He will show you how you can continue to bless Him and His kingdom.

If God Loved Me

Ivey Rorie On March 28, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

1 Corinthians 15: 34

For some have no knowledge of God’s wonderful love.

I think this is one of the biggest keys in all of Christianity, that is understanding the love the Father has for each of us. The verse above is Bible so it must be true but even if it was not in the Bible and you had simply spoken it to me, I would believe it.

It is easy for us to relate this passage to non-believers. If they knew of the love of God, we reason, then they would be believers too. My ministry, though, is not to non-believers but rather to the saints. I make this distinction to point out that I think this passage speaks to Christians. I believe few of us, myself included, have yet to grasp the love which God has for us. This applies to ministers as well.

I know this because I too hear the messages from the pulpit which lack the understanding that God is love and that He loves us. I know it applies to the saints because I hear the comments we speak which reveal our heart belief that God does not truly love us. Further, our actions speak even more loudly than words. We do not act like people who are convinced that God loves them. As I wrote about in the Word of the Day entitled Frozen Heart, this is the example of the mind being convinced but the heart unpersuaded. We believe in our minds; our thinking agrees that God loves us. In our hearts, though, we lack the substantive belief that would allow us to rely on His love.

Now that we have identified a problem, the real question is how to fix it. Well, by now we have figured out that we can fix nothing in our own strength. We must rely on our partnership with the Trinity and here is the real heart of the problem. How do we go to God and partner with Him when our heart of hearts doesn’t truly believe that He loves us?

Most often, even when we see an issue like this, we don’t do anything about it for two reasons. The first being what I just identified, we don’t completely trust Him. Secondly, we don’t really know what to do. Our relationship with Him may be that we don’t feel we have paved avenues to Him, but, as much as that feels true, it is not. Jesus told us that he is the way (John 14: 6). Do you trust Jesus? I have known many people who have affection for and feel close to Jesus but have almost no relationship with God the Father. Actually, I was one of those people. There were two things I did which bridged the gap for me. First, I went to God through Jesus. In my visionary capacity, I saw myself walking into the throne room accompanied by Jesus. He took me to God and presented me. It was a very empowering experience. As I watched the scene unfold, I could see the joy and pride on Jesus’ face as he presented me to God. That bolstered my confidence. Then I looked upon the Father and I received the welcoming presence He radiated towards me. His eyes were for me rather than Jesus. He didn’t dismiss Jesus, but His attention was for me. That was significant because even with Jesus in the room, Father gave His attention to me.

In my previously emaciated relationship with God, the only role I played was as a servant. I only encountered the Father to pick up an assignment, a task. As I began to engage with Him, I began to see myself differently. No longer do I enter the throne room and drop to a knee, head bowed, awaiting orders. Now I run and jump in His lap while He carries on universe business. I am the child who enters my Dad’s office or the boardroom while He is working. I am always welcome and always permitted.

The other thing which helped me begin to see God as loving parent was a shift in my visualization. A friend of mine recommended this. Back in the days when I was struggling to find the loving, affectionate part of our relationship she suggested I meet with God in a location that was comfortable to me. So, I met with Him at my conference table. At that time I was practicing law and conducted a lot of business at the conference room table. Being able to talk with Him when He was in my place of comfort rather than in His throne room helped me to be able to talk with Him in a more relaxed manner. Then one day we moved from the conference room to the kitchen table. Very rapidly He became Yahweh and Dad to me. I never call Him “God” now, accept in referring to Him with other people.

Don’t forget to just talk with Him about this subject and also, this is an excellent opportunity to use your two-way journaling. The bottom line is this, if you will give Him an opportunity to show His love for you, He will. It is a top priority for Him. We have to be proactive though. We can’t keep Him at arm’s length, treat Him as a far distant deity and still be able to receive the assurance of His love that we need. If we would learn to pour out our hearts to Him, speaking earnestly and honestly from our hearts, He would be able to lead us into intimacy with Him. I had to begin at my conference room table because that is where I was but that is not where we meet any longer. He will always meet you at your point of need, if you let Him but the initiative and control always belongs to us.

How convinced is your heart that Father loves you? You know it in your head, sure, but does your innermost self feel His affection? Can you wrap words around His love for you or does your internal mechanism choke if you try to speak about His love? Do you know that God loves you more than your spouse, children and grandchildren do? That’s big but you should be able to feel that inside of you so that you are so sure that you would bet anything on it. I hope you will give this some thought today and maybe you can have a chat with Dad about it too. Certainly talk with Jesus if you have any reservations.

Go Jump in the River

Ivey Rorie On March 27, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Psalm 46: 4

There is a river whose streams bring joy to the city of God, the holy place where the Most High lives.

This river is the Holy Spirit and the flow of the Holy Spirit brings many benefits to our lives. Among these is joy. The Holy Spirit is often characterized as a flow in addition to water, rivers and fountains. It is the flow of the Spirit which brings revelation and waters the garden of God. We live in and as part of God’s city right now even as we dwell on earth because the earth is part of His realm too. Because there is great, and I do mean great, profit flowing in and from the Spirit, it is important that we come to know him better and better.

One of the things that is interesting about the Spirit is shown in today’s passage and that is that he is often referred to as some form of water. Think about water for a moment and consider not only how important it is for all life forms but also all of the ways water impacts your life. Try washing clothes, dishes or your face and most often you will use water. Most detergents and cleaners have water in them already or combine with water to do their jobs. Just imagine a week without water even if you had drinking water. I would be using some of that potable water to brush my teeth. We use water in cooking. Besides all that, our bodies are mostly water, as you know.

When you consider the importance of water don’t you find it interesting that God identifies the Holy Spirit as living water? In Jeremiah 2: 13 God said, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters.” God calls Himself The fountain of living waters referring to Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember the story of the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well? In verse 10 of John chapter 4, “Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” Again, living water but this time it was Jesus who reveals there is living water, i.e. water that is alive and which gives life. Later in that same chapter, in verse 14, Jesus describes the value of the living water, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Jesus also said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water,’” (John 7: 38).

I find these verses exhilarating but I am also impressed by their significance. Water is vital for life and I think that is the point Jesus is making in these verses. From this fountain of living water springs all of life. Perhaps Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit is vital for life and he, therefore, wants us to seek this living water. Jesus wants us to become cognizant of the role the Holy Spirit is intended to play in all our lives. We cannot live without water and I believe Jesus is saying that none of us will flourish or grow without the flowing river of the Holy Spirit. This river is meant to spring up from our innermost being. We can ask ourselves if we feel we are living in this springing up flow from our innermost selves. We can ask if the Spirit is welling up within us. Then, we can ask the Father for this revelation about the Spirit to be manifested in our lives whether we are experiencing a little creek or a raging river for there is always more of the Holy Spirit for us to receive.

Make it a point to meditate on and come to know this third person of the Holy Trinity. Think about what these water verses mean. What did the Father and Jesus mean for us to get out of them? What was Jesus trying to get the Samaritan woman to see and do? Most of all, jump in the river of living water and drink your fill.

Frozen Heart

Ivey Rorie On March 26, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Romans 14: 5

Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

Being convinced in our minds is the easiest part. The mind is willing, but our hearts are unconvinced. Have you watched the Disney movie, Frozen? Well, here is another life lesson from my “Everything I learned, I learned from Cartoons” anthology. Of course, last week the Disney movie, Saving Mr. Banks, was not animated, but you get the idea.

One of the central characters in Frozen, Anna, was injured by her sister Elsa’s freeze power. Elsa’s frozen shot hit Anna in the head. Their parents, the Queen and King, rushed Anna to a troll elder for help. The elder encouraged them saying, “You are lucky it wasn’t her heart. The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded.”

In this I hear the voice of God speaking. Today, as I refreshed myself on exactly what the troll elder said I quipped to myself, “How is it that a troll knows this, and we do not?” We have fallen into a pattern of intellectual service to God but little engagement with our hearts. Of course, some people are better at engaging their hearts than others. Each of must learn, though, how to persuade our hearts to the Word of God.

I confess, I learned early to study the Bible and I have always enjoyed studying it. I’ve learned a lot too but there was a significant component missing from my Christianity. In 2006 I discovered what was missing. It was a heart connection with the Father. Honestly, this was a challenging time. I had to learn to join to the Father with my spirit. In the deep parts of our being, we have built safety walls and not even God is allowed to penetrate that perimeter. Our tender feelings are safely stored away there as well as what we perceive as dangerous memories and experiences. We learned to lock away everything that makes us tender and certainly anything which makes us vulnerable. So, my Christianity became one of intellectual pursuit. I wasn’t seeking God’s heart. Sometimes I wasn’t even seeking His thoughts. I wanted His Word, His knowledge and His wisdom. Leave my heart out of this and speak to my brain. Can anyone relate to this? You see, I could read the Word and get knowledge from it. I could mentally agree to the ideas and categorize them into their proper place in the file cabinet of my mind. Easy-peasy! That was not good enough for Father though. He wanted into my heart.

Your mind and mine, will accept most of what we read in the Bible and file it comfortably away. The trouble comes when you try to convince your heart that these verses and promises are not facts and intellectual ideas but rather something to embrace with your spirit, something to be believed in your heart and then, implemented. Can I stand on the quaking bluff and defiantly declare that the Lord, my God, is my rock and my strong refuge, and I will not fear! It’s a nice thought, a beautiful verse. It’s a good passage to preach about and even to use to encourage your friends, but . . . is it more than that? Can my heart be persuaded that it is absolute truth? When I use the word absolute in this way I often thing of absolute zero. It is the place of undeniable reality, ultimate truth. Can we take these Bible verses and convince our hearts that they mean what they say? Or, as has become our Christian custom, do we say, “That is not for today, miracles have passed away, that is a promise only to the Jews,” or any of a number of excuses? The Bible says I am healed. My mind says, “Yes, Jesus is our healer.” But my heart knows that I do not really believe that Jesus will heal me even though God’s reality is that He already has healed me. Faith and belief, as a Godly paradigm, demand that I reconcile these concepts.

Your heart is much more powerful than you mind. Your brain takes in a lot of information, but your heart tells it what to do with it. Do we file it away in the vault or do we undertake to integrate it into the very fiber of our being? Most of us smile and nod, smile and nod, but we do not challenge ourselves to take God at His Word. I cannot even imagine how it makes Him feel for us to say, “Yeah, but . . ..” He knows, though, that our mind can accept His challenging ideas but our hearts quake. Truth be told, it takes some guts to get in touch with your inner self. Most of us are too afraid to do it, too afraid to face God’s truths and our realities. What will we find, what will we feel? We’ve done a great job of anesthetizing ourselves so that we don’t have to feel much of anything and then God comes along and says, “Let me live, work and breathe in the very core of your being.” Of course that is scary, but, God is love and we can trust Him. He will always love and accept us. He wants to lead us into abundant life, but fullness of life is for the brave of heart. Everything fabulous comes at a price. The price of this abundant life that Jesus came to the earth to give us is thawing this frozen heart.

Stirred, not Shaken

Ivey Rorie On March 25, 2019 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Psalm 46: 1 – 2

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble. That is why we are not afraid even when the earth quakes or the mountains topple into the depths of the sea.

Imagine, for a moment, standing on a bluff. Beneath your feet you feel the earth quaking as if shivering from a sudden chill. In the near distance you see a mountain as large as any mountain you have ever seen. While you look upon it, it crumbles like cheese, and the whole mountain tumbles into the sea. Where once stood a mountain, there is now nothing. Imagine, as you stand there, the earth still moving beneath your feet, that you feel no fear. Picture yourself standing there and see the confidence portrayed on your face. You have nothing to fear because your God is a strong refuge, a very real and very present help in the time of trouble.

You may never witness a cataclysmic event like described above, but then again, you may. There are places in the world where one could be exposed to seismic activity on this scale. All of us face those times, though, when our world is crumbling around us. The strong people and institutions we have relied upon fall into the sea, never to be seen again. It is in those times that we are best served if we have thought about, nay meditated on, this verse until its encouragement is integrated into the very fiber of our being. We need this assurance in that day.

Psalm 62: 6 reads, “He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.” Can you currently say that with conviction? Maybe you believe it, intellectually, but it is not buried in the soil of your heart. Perhaps, it has not yet taken root. In that day when our world is shaken, we need the kind of assurance these scriptures boast of. One only acquires this level of confidence in one of two ways; either you have experienced standing on the rock and know the truth of this statement or you have meditated on it enough that your spirit is convinced.

These psalms are written by people who saw the strong tower, the mighty refuge of God. They not only boast of the Lord in song but also their songs are an attempt to transfer their experience, wisdom and conviction to the rest of us. You will never go wrong by basking in the Psalms. They are great encouragement and I hope (& pray) that you find encouragement in today’s excerpt from Psalm 46.

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