The Glory of God

[Exodus 33:18]

And he said, "Please, show me your glory."

That is where I found myself this morning during prayer. Desiring to go deeper with The Lord and asking for a greater awareness of His Presence and anointing. A greater awareness of His glory. 

God came through. 

-----

As I was standing, facing the wall, praying, I asked God to take me deeper. Not long after I found it incredibly difficult to stay standing. I grabbed the table on the side of me to steady myself because I kept swaying back and forth. So I decided to sit on the floor. While sitting I continued to pray and I asked God to let His Spirit pour over me. To completely overtake me. I sat for a few moments silent just resting in Him and then I began to repeat the name of Jesus over and over again. Every time I said His name I would feel my body lean backwards towards the ground as if I was about to lay down. When I stopped saying His name I would use the little strength and energy I had to lift my body upright again. This process lasted about three times. I felt completely overwhelmed by His Spirit. The name of Jesus is so powerful, and all I could think about was the fact that Jesus, holy Jesus, whose name itself brings me to the ground because of how powerful it is, still chose to die on a cross for me. Prayer ended not long after that and as I was able to share a little bit about what happened to the students here, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and trying to understand exactly what happened. 

-----

[Numbers 20:6]

"So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and they fell on their faces. And the glory of The Lord appeared to them."

God's glory is amazing. It's breathtaking. It's captivating. It's mighty. And, it brought me to the floor. 

All day I have been reading up on people who experienced God's glory and reading accounts of those who have had the Spirit of The Lord come upon them. What I have gathered through everything I have read is how big and mighty and powerful the Glory of a God is. In Exodus 24, it describes God's glory as a consuming fire. That's pretty intense. 

[Exodus 33:7-23]

"Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.” So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.” Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” 

God's glory is so powerful that we cannot even see it and live. He had to hide Moses in the cleft of a rock and cover Him with His hand as His glory passed over Him. That's incredible and it completely blows my mind. The fact that God would even show me a portion of that glory creates nothing less than a desire to worship Him. What is even more amazing is that the way in which God reveals His glory to His people is not always the same way. Sometimes it's a physical thing like bringing me to the ground, but sometimes it's just an unexplainable joy that comes over you. Regardless of how, you will always know. Gods glory is mighty and when His Presence falls you will know. 

-----

[Ephesians 1:17-21]

"Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come." 

Seek revelations about the Glory of The Lord. As you grow in knowledge of who He is, you can't help but fall in love with Him. 

God is glorious and He deserves to be glorified. 

Perspective vs. Reality

I seem to talk about perspective a lot. It's something that I am constantly finding myself having to work on. Our flesh is constantly at war with all things spiritual and having a Godly perspective isn't something that I will one day have mastered never having to work at it again. It's a daily fight and something I was definelty reminded of today. 

I have been in Moldova for the past ten days working with some missionaries there and doing ministry with the youth. God moved through everything and I was able to make connections with girls there despite language barriers and cultural differences that I'm very blessed by. God also did a lot in me. He used me in ways that I never thought I would be used in and has shown me more of the freedom I have in Him. It was a very busy time and I went to bed each day very tired and woke up early each morning still very tired. So, when we packed up everything yesterday evening and began our journey back to Romania, I was ready to get in my bed and sleep. Of course that didn't happen right away. It took about seven maybe eight hours to drive from Moldova to Targoviste. We had to go through the border and all that fun stuff. When we finally made it to our apartment it was around 2:30 A.M. I am really weird about getting in my bed if I feel dirty. So, after eight hours sitting in a van with other people I felt gross. As much as I longed to get in my bed and drift off, I couldn't until I showered. So I did. It's now about three in the morning. I wrap myself in all my blankets trying to warm up and get comfy in my bed! I'm also an extremely light sleeper. Any kind of noise or light will usually wake me up and it takes me awhile to fall back asleep. So around 4/4:30 in the morning I hear my roommate Ashlie talking to someone on Skype and I'm completely confused. Who in the world could she be on skype with? And why would she after being so tired when we made it back? She knows how light of a sleeper I am! Why would she think that's ok?! So I do this little yell/mumble thing telling her I can hear her talking. Her response is, "Adele, go back to sleep." What!? Go back to sleep! Excuse me? My voice got a little louder this time and I tell her that I can't sleep with her talking. She stops talking after that and I don't hear anything again and I finally fall asleep. I slept forever. I didn't really wake up for good until about 2 P.M. today. That's how tired I was. When I finally get out of bed Ashlie is up on her phone and asked how I slept. I say fine and then I remember everything that happened earlier and I ask her who in the world she decided to skype at four in the morning when I was trying to sleep. She asked what I was talking about. Turns out, that whole conversation never happened. At all. Not on her part anyway. So while I was talking and telling Ashlie to be quiet, she never said anything back to me. It was all in my head. I basically had an entire conversation with myself. Talk about knowing when you are exhausted. Having full blown conversations in your head that you believe are real. I can laugh about it now but when it happened I was so upset. What I thought was my reality was really only my perspective. It wasn't real. 

-----

Our perspectives are not always our realities. Our emotions and feelings more often than not determine our perspectives. It's something I'm really having to ask God to help me with every day. To have His perspective. To see things the way He sees them. To not let my feelings determine what I think or what I call truth. I am constantly reminding myself of grace and gentleness and that I need to be that even when I'm frustrated or upset but sometimes I just can't see why people do the things they do or are the way they are. What I have learned today though is how flawed my perspective has been. It needs to be about Jesus always. If I have His perspective, if I see everything and everyone the way He does, I would save myself a lot of grief trying to understand people or situations. There are things I can't understand. There are things I can't change. When I allow my own perception of things to get in the way, I completely miss out on the fact that God is doing things that I can't see. And, when I miss out on that I'm also missing out on the peace that follows knowing that God is at work past what I see and what I feel. That He is greater than those things. I don't want to miss out on His peace and His truth. And, I definitely don't want to believe something to be reality based on my perspective when it's not. 

-----

[ 2 Corinthians 4:18] 

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

[ Isaiah 55:8]

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares The Lord." 

-----

Pray for me, that I would seek out Christ's perspective in every area of my life. That I would have eyes that see the way He does.