Hill Country Thoughts

I went from feeling super to feeling like I was dying (maybe it is a guy thing, don’t think we handle pain as will as the women). I mean every part of me hurt. From top to bottom, head to foot and everywhere in between I hurt, I felt like I was in an oven and had chills that would not stop.

I went to my bedroom and I laid down for a couple of hours and rested some. I was still feeling bad, didn’t want to do anything, much less write and then it hit me, that is just what the enemy wanted from me, to not write, to share, to lift up my friends, by brothers and sisters in the Lord.

As I open the word, I read I Thessalonians 5:18 “…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (NIV). Then I began to remember various Psalms, bits and pieces of them, how the Psalmist David, would speak to himself. He would say “bless the Lord oh my soul, and all that is within me bless His Holy Name.” That we are to rejoice in the Lord, to praise Him and to lift Him up. To praise God!

Then I realized how important those words are “Yet, will I Praise Him.” In the midst of trials, in the midst of battles, in storms and in times of illness, I will praise Him and exalt Him and give a sacrifice of Praise and Worship, for in the worship and praise is healing and restoration for body, soul and spirit.

As I began to worship Him, He began to breathe afresh on me. There is healing in His presence and He brought me up out of the pit that the enemy was trying to put me in.

So no matter what is going on in your life, no matter the battle, He is there. For He inhabits the Praises of His people, right were you are at. In a meeting, on the front porch or even laying in bed, He brings healing to the spirit, to the mind and to the soul.

So no matter what it is that the enemy is throwing at you this day, let us join the Psalmist David and say, “Yet will I praise you and I will exalt you my God, my Lord and my Saviour!”



Till Later,

That we are to be radiant, allowing that new life within to shine forth, that the presence of the Lord in our lives will draw others to want to know more, to have a desire to know the Lord Jesus Christ as we do, as Lord and Saviour.

Today was a good day but it was also a day that I found myself feeling very oppressed of the enemy, feeling like I was under intense pressure, that it would not take much to cause me to flee, to say no more!! But I knew that it was not from the Lord.

But our Father is faithful. He always, and I mean always makes a way for us in the midst of the storms of life, in life’s battles a way to stand and be strong in Him. He sends people into our lives, that will stand with us, encourage us and let us know that He is there and He is listening.

He has given me friends such as my Pastor Scott, my friend Lewis. They have been there for me many, many times during this season in my life. There is Diana and Bob, who have also been there and have walked with me down this path, this journey that I am on with the Lord. They have been there. That I could call and they would listen and pray and share and just let me know that they loved me and were praying with me. There are prayer warriors such as my friends, Robin and Von who have lifted me in prayer many times and my number one prayer warrior, my mom, who daily stands in the gap for me and many, many others.

He has brought Steve and Luanne, into my life, to be a source of encouragement to me also as I am walking this path, encouraging me in my writing, and in the things that I am sharing. That the Lord used Luanne’s book, to bring me to a new level in my walk with my Father, that I am truly being caught up in the thought of who He is and who I am in Him.

There is Roy and Jessica and the many others at Crossmap, who too, have been a source of encouragement, who pray and lift me before the Lord.

There are so many of you who are having an impact on my life such as Kat, Denise, Meesh, Romi, Bob, Paula, Sharon, Vicki, Princess Deirdre, Pam, Rita, Donna, Jason, Lawrence, Funky, Romi, Mrs. Diamond, Mrs. Darling and the many, many others of you who have been a source of encouragement as you have stopped by Hill Country Thoughts.

You all will never know how much you have blessed me because there are not enough words to do so. It is so important to see what the Lord is doing, in that He is building His church, the body of Christ and He is using the church, the Internet, to link us together in ways we would have never thought possible many years ago.

I am blessed to be able to sit here on the porch, to be able to enjoy the beauty of the evening, the presence of the Lord. That indeed in the midst of lifes storms, comes a calmness that only our Father can give.

What a joy and a privilege it is to lift each other up and exhort one another in the things of the Lord. That the Lord is building a church, a people called by His name and that we have the honor of building each other up in the faith.

So be strong my friends, draw close to your Father this day and He will draw close to you and you will be blessed!!

Till later,

Paul

Then in your heart you hear “I Care”

You look around to see who just spoke out. To you it sounded like an audio voice. You kind of shake your head and say, “Nah, I just hearing things. I mean who really cares about me, about what is going on in my life and why does it matter. Again, you hear that voice again saying,

“I care, I really care for you more than you will ever know.”

And then the Lord begins to speak to you and begins to share His heart with you.

“Even before the foundation of the earth I cared. Even in the garden I cared, though the ages I have always cared. I always loved my children. Even when they rejected me, I still loved them.”

“I cared so much I sent my Son to redeem you and bring you back home to Me. Back to a place of fellowship, to a place of learning to know me as Abba Father!”



Till later,

It has been such a joy and a blessing since my “Isaacks Moment” on Monday. There is such an awareness of the Lord. A sense of knowing that the Lord and I are walking together and that He is teaching me each day what it means to be one with Him and that is something that He wants all of His children to enjoy. To enjoy His presence no matter where we are.

I still cannot get over how exciting it was to experience the Lord as I did on Monday. That the Lord chose that day to reveal Himself to me so that it would forever be written upon my heart! I believe there is a time in each of our lives, that the Lord wants to reveal Himself in such a way that it will be forever written upon our hearts, our mind and our spirit.

When I am talking about a manifest presence of the Lord I am not talking about the Lord visibly manifesting Himself there in Isaacks, I am talking about a presence, an awareness that I knew, that I knew that His presence, His Spirit was there, as I was sitting there reading and the Lord just open the eyes of my heart, my spirit, to see, to understand at that moment a whole new perspective of who He is. That indeed He was and is Lord of my life and a new passion was birthed at that moment. There is no other way to describe what happen.

It gave me a new understanding that my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is indeed a friend, that He reveals Himself through the word, through others that He brings into our lives, through angels unawares and angels are not necessarily angelic beings, for the term angel means a messenger of God, a minster of God, a servant of God and I know that the Lord has sent many “angels” into my life over the last couple of years and that He used them to minister to me, just as He used the music of Luanne Hunt and Rose Bowen, to draw me closer to Him.

What a privilege and honor it is for us to be able to share that which will bless others, to use the gifts that God has given us to reach out and touch others and allow the Lord to have an impact in their lives because we have been obedient to use the gifts that He has given us, and it brings changes to others, that one door after another is open, as we write, as we share, as we sing, as we exhort, as we give out of what has been given us because of that which the Lord is working in our lives.

That we are constantly and daily being conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are to become a reflection of Him, of our Father to a world that is in desperate need to see the reality of Christ within, the hope that comes from daily walking with Him.

He has given us His Holy Spirit so we can walk in His word, in His ways, because of who He is in us. He has not called us to do the impossible, He has called us to walk in Him, to allow Him to reveal Himself day by day.

Walking this day, this hour with the Lord and then to wake refreshed daily to walk with Him. Is that not awesome, does that not give you hope. That we serve the Creator of Heaven of Earth, that we can walk in the power of His Spirit and He is bringing us back to a place of intimacy, of truly knowing Him, to a place of pursuing Him.

It is the Lord, that is creating that hunger within you to want to know more of Him. It is something that the Lord is birthing in us. It is that void in our heart, that is being filled with Him and then and only then can we begin to learn the meaning of true love, a love that is bringing changes to our hearts, to our minds, to our spirit. That it enables us to walk and live in this present world. That we are not alone. We are His children and that the Lord is bringing us back to the Heart of the Father, to a place of saying “Abba Father, I love you and I want to please you and walk with you. I want to be all that you have called me to be.”

It pleases our Father, for us to come into His presence. Sometimes to just sit there and just know that He is there and then at other times to just talk to Him, as you would a friend. In John 17:21 we read “That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.” Is that awesome, even as our Lord and the Father are one, so we are to be one with the Father and Son, and one with each other.

We are to passionately seek the Lord, to pursue Him with our whole being and allow Him to reveal Himself to us, that He wants to walk with us in our everyday lives, so that as we go about the tasks, the things that are set before us, we can walk in the strength and power of His Holy Spirit.

We are looking all over the place for the Lord. We look here and there and what we seem to miss is that He is right here, right in our midst and He has been here all the time. We need a fresh revelation of who He is in our lives, we need to remember that we serve a risen saviour, who is alive and sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, that He is our advocate and that He has made the way for us to know our Father and He will daily bring us into the throne room of our Father, if we will allow Him too.

The Lord can reveal Himself anywhere He likes. On the front porch, with Paul on the road to Damascus, or like the two men walking on the Road to Emmaus, He was there walking with them and when they sit down to eat we read in Luke 24:30-31 “ And it occurred that as He reclined at table with them, He took [a loaf of] bread and praised [God] and gave thanks and asked a blessing, and then broke it and was giving it to them (31) When their eyes were [instantly] opened and they [clearly] recognized Him, and He vanished (departed invisibly).”

Is that not awesome. The Lord broke bread with them, He eat with them and when He broke the bread, their eyes were open and they could see instantly and they clearly recognized Him. He revealed Himself to them and that is what the Lord is doing with us, He is wanting to reveal Himself to us, to break bread with us and to give us an understanding of who He is.

He is bringing us to a place that we are so excited about Him that we cannot wait to share what He has shown us this day, to share the insights that He is giving us, that we allow Him to create in us a passion within that will settle for nothing less then Him, that in Him we have everything and the rest of it as a dear friend of mine told me, is icing on the cake.

We are learning to know what it means to be real people, living in a real world and serving a living God and a risen savior and allowing others to see Christ within. That we are to be a reflection of the Master, that He is the potter and we are the clay in His Hands, that He is molding and shaping us to be vessels that will reflect the reality of who He is. We are His masterpieces, the creation of His hands, that He is using to reflect the Reality of who He is, Lord of Lord, King of Kings, Abba Father!!

Till Later,