Lord, as I stand before you tonight, I want to declare before all of the unseen powers that I will agree with you and will not bend according to sight.

     You designed the situation.

     You designed me and named me. 

     In the context of this truth, I lean on you and ask for Grace to agree with you in every detail of each hour.  I refuse to ask why.  I refuse to fantasize about how it could have been different.  I refuse to fear the future.

     I am a bondservant  and want nothing else.

     My Lord and my God

     The issue is Love.

     Where is Love?  Is it with you?  Is it with the other?  It is with Him?

     Soldier of The Cross,  take Him at His Word.  What other choice is there?  Do you believe Him, or is there some chance He is presenting Himself dishonestly?

     Of course not. 
     He named you.
     He died for you.
     He rose for you.
     He is preparing a place for you, otherwise, He would have told you!
     He attends to each thing about which you talk to Him.
     He withholds no good thing.

     Soldier, where are you?  With Him or not?
     Submissive or rebellious?

     Tell Him.  Aloud.
    

    Soldier of The Cross, why are you looking at the problem?

     Haven't you learned that there is no horizontal solution?  Soldier,  get a grip!

     There is no way but His way, and all of the contrivances and manipulations are of no effect when it comes to the things that are eternal.

     So, pray according to His Word and stand back.  Let Him have His way.

     Look up and move on!

     Walking with the Lord is not a matter of strategy. 

     It is a matter of agreeing with God.

     He has made it clear in His Word that He requires one step a time, and that step must be in faith.  He has never given any Soldier of The Cross a layout of the Plan.  All we need we have in His Word.

     There must be Light. 
     It is not about knowing what to do - it is about knowing who to follow.

     Lord, as I stand before you tonight I am thankful that when you touched me, it was transforming.

     Everything changed and came alive.  Then I knew that I had been blind and deaf until meeting you.

     I come to you with all that I am and all that I have.  I come to the same responsive God of the universe who sought me out when I didn't care.

     Please do whatever is needed in the deepest parts of me to make me more like you.

     My Lord and my God.

Many try to live by interpreting the signs.

If things work well, it is the Lord's blessing. If things fall through, it was the wrong decision.

Our God does not work this way. He reveals Himself in our weakness, and He is often experienced most richly in the fiery trial.

Remember so many whose lives have blessed ours - John and Betty Stam who were beheaded. The five missionaries who were killed by the Aucas. Peter, who was crucified upside down. Should I list more?

We are to be living sacrifices. This means He must be allowed to do anything with our lives that will glorify Him. Anything.

For the Soldier of The Cross, success is obeying the Lord. There is no earthly way to measure heavenly success.

You see the Lord or you don't.
You serve Him or you don't.
You yield to Him or you don't.

He has never hidden from a follower, and He has never played with any life.

Through thick or thin, trust Him He is able to lead, and He will lead with the fire and the cloud.

        I need to love the Lord enough to tell you the truth, and not always what you want to hear. As soon as I begin telling you only things that please you, our relationship rides on the balance of your responses.
     I am so grateful that God says it like it is. He says it creatively, tenderly, even wooingly. But He never compromises out of softness.
     He may withhold something for a time , but it is never out of fear of my disapproval - only Divine, creative timing.
     I am a weak little human, but the One Who rose from the dead lives in me, and that means that He is always working to prepare me for heaven.  So as I seem to stumble my way through, He is always putting before me a little more than I can comfortably do.
     The same thing happens in relationships. Our good friendship must be based not on frankness (that is something altogether different) but on my tongue answering with the light of God's Word as I am able.
     If you are interested in the same thing, we have fellowship one with another!

Are you a Christian worker?
     Does that mean you are available for the Work of the Cross?   
     Soldier, listen to me: You want what Heaven has to give - freedom.
     You must cease the evaluation of how you are doing, and you must step back into
the flow of the Holy Spirit, Who will guide you to the Death of the Flesh.
     Nothing else is more important for living than this principle..
     Are you available?  Not many are.
     But  when you are, He will reveal Himself in a new way - a way that will reveal
release and Heaven's momentum.
     Soldier, you must decide - do you want to be seen as successful, or do you want
Jesus.? That is the bottom line! 

     There is a teaching out there that leads Christians to believe that if they do everything as they should, "bad" things will not happen.
     There is an equally heretical teaching that "the Cross" is when hard, hard things happen, and it is "just our cross to bear."  
     Both of these ideas have root in labeling things "good" and "bad", when in fact, the Bible teaches us that we humans have everything upside down
     The purpose of the book of Job is many fold. It is not just about a patient man - in fact, I don't find Job patient at all. I find him faithful in refusing to find fault with God, and he is a beautiful example. But God seems to think it was good to say to Satan, "see my servant Job..."
     And then, all hell broke loose.
     And it was in the Plan!
     If we take each thing that happens as being in the plan of God, then we are able to obey His Word and look for Him - hope for Him - wait for Him. Even with the fiery furnace, Satan intended it for evil, but the Lord used it for good.
     Nothing just slides by the Lord.
     We must learn to live in humble gratitude for all that God allows, and we must tell Him constantly that we want things His way and not ours.
     That is the Cross - the place where the flesh is crucified. We must be eager to say (outloud) in the hardest times that we want His way more than we want out.
     That is the meaning of the verse that says "if any man will be my disciple, he must take up his cross and follow me..."

Have you set limits for the Lord?

Or have you told Him He can do anything with your life!

It is helpful to get together with Him and go over how trustworthy he is. Tell Him outloud.

Review what He has said He will do. Go over things He has done for others.

Tell Him how thrilled you are when you hear of those who trust Him. Tell Him how much you long to be closer to him, and how helpless you feel.

Then, tell Him you are His.

He will assure you, and you will never be the same.