be treasured here.

I have loved the Lord for a long time. I was a young girl when I accepted His Lordship. Even through the many times of life that I have faltered He has been faithful to forgive and love me so sweetly. Even through the many times of life when I have done the work of my own heart, I have always felt Him moving in that very place - working to transform this beating heart - from a mechanical self indulgent mere organ to a heart after Him. Jesus has my heart and will always. So I will seek Him with my life. He has been so active in my life lately. I almost wondered where He had been all my life - then I shuddered at the realization that it was I who had been missing in action..He has been a constant Guardian of my heart, while I, foolishly, played it to the beat.
There has been a strong movement of His faithfulness in my life. I'm humbled, I'm awestruck, I am in adoration. With all that has transpired all I can do is designate my life to be a forever song of praise. It is my life theme to make Him treasured here, in my heart.
The best part? His faithfulness and His love and mercy has been shown in ways that I could have never imagined, never prepared of my own accord.  

beautiful Jesus, how may i bless Your heart? knees to the earth i bow down to everything You are.
be blessed, be loved, be lifte high. be treasured here - be glorified. i owe my life to You my Lord, here i am. here i am.

on my mind in this moment of worship

i am mourning over the cross. a kind that leaves me exhausted with love and remorse and gratitude. i am overcomed with a sense that all i can do is adore You for this gift you have given me. You are such a brave LORD to do this for me. but you don't need me to tell You that. You are the LORD that saved me. You rescued me, You climbed up on that cross and stood in the line of fire. You literally took on the form of us, little small humankind. You did it for us, for the glory of God - for us to see His glory. You didn't just tell us that you loved us and that you would stand in between us and God's rightful judgment over sin, no, you became the bridge that seperated. You courageously became sin as you died. Your death covered sin and your resurrection conquered sin and your life sustains us in the freedom of Life.

let us fix our eyes upon You, Savior, the Author and Perfector of faith.
there is none like You. i adore You, You ransomed me forever.

we live in a world where freedom isn't free. a culture where we must earn our right for justice. they say we are born into a status of regular and we must attain the right to persist and succeed. BUT You O LORD deny this world the right to hold over our heads the unending consequence of death. You O LORD raise our head and tell us that we are Yours and we are free.

You are a Wonderful Savior and my heart is sealed with Your name. You are my heart's desire and treasure for the rest of time. it feels good to know You and be known by You. thank You for choosing not to remember my past and forgiving who i can't be. thank You for the joy and the victory being the proof of my hand in Yours as You lead me through this dry and weary land. there will come a day when my hand being in Your hand will be the proof of Your unending love for me. may my life always bring you joy and praise.

knees to the earth - by watermark

Wonderful Savior
My heart belongs to Thee
I will remember always
The blood You shed for me
Wonderful Savior
My heart will know Your worth
So I will embrace You always
As I walk this earth

Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here, be glorified
I owe my life to You oh Lord
Here I am

Beautiful Jesus
How may I bless Your heart?
Knees to the earth
I bow down to everything You are
Beautiful Jesus
You are my only worth
So I will embrace You always
As I walk this earth

a cup that overflows

Shame came to mind when I realized the other day that some days I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Ok, many days I do this. I am just not a morning person. I generally am not fully awake and ready to do anything until around 8am. This can sometimes pose problems in my schedule.

It is not ideal for me to be this way, honest! I would love to be one of those people that wake up bright and early at the crack of dawn - just ridiculously happy to be awake and alive. Sometimes I think I could be the kind that wakes up at 5:30...ok, 6am, and starts brewing the coffee, work out some pilates, greet the sunrise and spend time with the Master all before I have to get going for the day.
This is all in my ideal world. I know that it would leave me feeling more energized and awake, plus, I would be more open minded for the rest of the day, more focused on the tasks at hand.

Regardless of what time I wake up in the morning (thankfully and, both, foolishly assuming that I will...)is irrelevant to God. He just wants my time, MORNING, NOON and NIGHT. He wants to bless me abundantly with His presence in my life. For this, I am thankful and undeserving. It just astounds me to know that God of all creation wants to spend quality time with me. No matter how many times I say it, I will repeat in constant praise and adoration that HE is a Wonderful Savior. Hallelujah!

So, this will not necessarily be a "new year's resolution" as much as it will be a daily resolution (because it will be a DAILY choice). I hereby, being of sound spiritual mind (at the moment anyway), determine and promise to make the most effort of my ability to wake each morning (regardless of what time) and have a set apart time to devote to meditating on Him. This should be separate from my daily Bible studying - or even my prayer request time. No, this time is just for simply sitting in utter adoration of Him and who He is. Colossians 1:16 says, "For all things were created by God. These things in heaven and earth were created for Him and by Him." Wow, this means that they were not created by or for me. So, I need to quit saying thank you for the sunrise and start saying thank you for creating the sunrise and inviting me to see your wonders. Thank you God, for including me in your creation. For involving me in your plans. For being as vast and unknowable that all I can do is sit in ridiculous AWE struck wonder over your majesty.

My words can't compare to what God is. I can't compare to what God is. All I can be is thankful. All I can do is give Him the praise that He deserves and desires.

For this opportunity I wake up each morning and know that He has chosen to share His mighty presence to my existence. He chooses to give me a cup that OVERFLOWS with love for Him.

From this understanding we are granted a component of faith. This is JOY. Understanding that we are to be in constant exaltation of His presence is what gives us JOY - and not just Joy, I'm talking so much Joy people think you are crazy. This kind is what spills over (the image of a cup that overflows..) It is infectious at it's best and still obvious at it's worst (if there is a low point of Joy). This overabundance of what enables us to share, love, give, care, tithe, donate, serve, testify, believe, hope, endure, sacrifice...

Somehow, this topic just leads me to Psalm 23. And a Sunday School lesson I have experienced.

Verse 1: The Lord is my shepherd, I Shall not want. - This means I have enough trust in Him to provide me with what I don't even realize I don't deserve.

Verse 2: He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters. - I can fully rely on Him to calm every ounce of resistance inside of me. I KNOW that he will abate my fears and anxiety and call me to rest in Him.

Verse 3: He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake. - He clean all the junk and the funk out of my mind, heart and soul. Because He calls me His daughter HE wipes away the miry clay that I continually and foolishly make my bed and He puts me back on the right track. Everyday.

Verse 4: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. - Ok, this is a big one...don't miss it. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And so do you. We all do, we are all dying. We live in dying bodies. We roam a dying earth. And thank God he will restore His Bride one day. BUT until then. We are to acknowledge death and face it. Kind Solomon told us that it is better to be among the mourners than the living happy folk. He says that we should understand death and face it. This is how we understand the vaporous quality of our life. Now, with this being said - death is a scary thing, it is the unknown. But really it isn't...we just established that we walk through it every day. So fear NO evil. HE IS WITH US!!! He has power and dominion that even the enemy cannot stand up against. He slams His gravel-like staff in the face of death. Why? He shows His almighty power over us and His ability to protect us from the valley of the shadow of death.

Verse 5: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. - Wow, He wants us to be the guest of honor? How thoughtful, really. Think of when you have guests come visit. You pull out all the stops. They get the best of everything: bathroom towels, bed-sheets, fluffy pillows, the best dishes, etc. The Maker of Heaven and Earth wants to know that regardless of what our enemies throw at us - He has a special place (with all the best of the best) prepared for us to seek His presence and shelter. He gives us His finest. He gives us enough of what we need, more than enough. The least we can do is Honor Him with everything we have in us. The very least.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever. - All for the glory of Jesus, we will be surrounded with goodness and mercy. He wants us to bring Him glory. This is where we find goodness and mercy. Oh, to see His goodness and mercies that are new each morning - it sometimes makes me feel like Isaiah...I am a person of unclean lips and not worthy of such a good God. I am thankful to this good God that we are promised a dwelling place in His love and presence forever. God is good, all the time.

Hallelujah, what a savior.

I want to leave you with a simple definition of JOY.
--the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.--

Remember, that the source of this Joy thing is our Heavenly Father. He is Jehovah-Jireh: the LORD that provides enough for each day. He provides us this Joy. It is found in Him. Each day start out asking the LORD to be your Jehovah-Jireh. He wants us to receive a cup that overflows with the Joy of the Lord.

here i am to worship...or am i?

A co-worker approached me one day and asked me a really simple "spiritual" question. He always throws me some good think-worthy questions, but when he asked me this one...I am not going to lie, I thought it was a boring one. It was one that I had thought about before. I had been asked about before and honestly - it was just one of those spiritual themes that had just been worn out.

He asked me the question, I was busy faxing something so I really wasn't listening. Then he came back a few minutes later and asked me again. This time I really thought about it. That is when it happened. Like a ton of bricks. The LORD just pinned me right where I was sitting and said...what is about to come out of your mouth, maybe you should actually listen to.

OUCH

Nothing like a good "preachin' to the choir"...

Co-Worker: "We know how to define worship within the walls of church, but what is it to worship with your life? What helps you 'remember' to be in a constant state of worship?"

Me: "Well, three verses come to mind right off the bat. Philippians 4:8, Galations 5:22, and Ephesians 5:8..."

First Philippians 4:8 - my good ol' Whatever verse. This is a solid reminder of how our daily thought processes should go, and for that matter - our daily worship practices. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." How hard is that, huh? This means, we should always be fawning over our Lord. He is Truth, He is Nobility, He is Righteous, He is Purity, He is Loveliness, He is worthy of Admiration, He is Excellent, He is worthy to be Praised - and we should ALWAYS keep our mind stayed on Him. Lord, help us to keep our thoughts, attitudes, and actions focused on You.

Second is Galations 5:22 - rooty tooty fresh and FRUITy! I so admire the Fruits of the Spirit. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." And thank you Jesus! As Christians we are called to constantly display all of theses characteristic traits. This is no easy task. We can NOT do it on our own! The only prayer in heaven that we have is to ALWAYS be in prayer asking Jesus to give us this day our daily Fruit. Let me tell you, we won't be doing this without being in some shape, form or fashion constant adoration of this Great God that we serve.

Lastly, Ephesians 5:8. Old self versus new self. Walking the Walk. "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." Youch. This is one heavy verse. No excuses here. This one speaks on and on regarding being a living worship. Live is an active verb here. A perpetual constant never-ending verb. We once (preChristian) existed in darkness BUT God! We live in the light of the LORD. So live like it good golly!

I love when Jesus gently draws me to reality that is Him. I even more love when he whams me down on my face to catch my full attention. On fire is what He demands. on fire is what I desire.