What Has Stopped You

A little child shall lead them!

What is it that has buried you alive, shattered you in a million pieces, enveloped you in an ocean of grief, disemboweled you with the heartless and cruel razor slashing of daily living, what is it that has caused you to become immobilized, detoured you from following Him?

Just hear the heart of the Father of our spirit in these words spoken by our dear brother Paul to BE your ability to take the next step forward: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Part of the meaning of the name Papa chose and gave to me, by my earthly parents is “bold.” Richard the Lion hearted. It derives from Proverbs 28: “The wicked flee when no man pursued: but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
The key word I am seeing in this verse is not bold, but “Righteous,” it is the Righteous One in me as that bold one!
This Righteous One in me is allowing me to partake of my birth right, my inheritance, He is becoming more and more my daily bread, His strength is becoming so perfectly displayed in my absolute, total weakness, it is His boldness that is taking hold of me and turning me into a mad man for Him.
It is becoming a roaring and intensified mandate within me, to see His freedom established in His saints the church which IS His body, spirit, soul and body!

Father is using whatever it takes to bring us to a “knowing” of Him in us as us, as our ONLY life, and for me this morning it was in beginning to read from the book of Daniel. The orchestra begins its musical score in a minor key, foreboding and tension fills the air.
A great ruler, King Nebuchadnezzar has just conquered Jerusalem and besieged it. In claiming as his sole possession all of Jerusalem and all within it, he takes along with his army many captives, but four Jews in particular, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the names given to them by the prince of the eunuchs.
Here’s where the musical score takes on a major key, Daniel it says, “Purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.”
Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs. Please read all of this here.
My point in all of this is to point you to the One, the only One who is your ability to, ‘having done all stand’ or, to take the next seemingly impossible step forward in spite of all logic or myth understand.

I want to close this with a quote from He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen: “For the first time since that cruel day in Eden, God was sitting down with people he loved and they were not cowering in fear.
For centuries men and women had stood at a great distance from God, shamed by their sin and intimidated by his holiness. With only a few notable exceptions, people wanted nothing to do with the immediacy of God’s presence. When Mount Sinai shook with thunder and earthquakes, the people begged Moses to go to God for them. God was a terrifying figure, and feeling safe with him was unthinkable.
But God had never thought so. He was unfolding his plan to restore the fellowship with humanity that Adam and Eve had lost in their fall. In Jesus, he was able to sit down in the company of those he loved, and they were comfortable enough to engage him in a real conversation. What an incredible moment that must have been for Jesus, to be with people who were not so awed by him that they could not enjoy his presence.
Of course, it happened only because the disciples had no idea that it was God who stoked the fire as they sat around and laughed. For although we now know that Jesus was God incarnate on Earth, they had no idea, and that made all the difference.”

By His grace I intend to become that safe place for many to discover the Righteous One, their boldness, as I simply love them as he loves me!

Rich