When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me,
The Plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see

How I blocked Him here, and I checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will --
Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes,
Grief, though He loves me still?

He would have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I cannot retrace.

Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With the tears that I cannot shed;
I shall cover my face with my empty hands,
I shall bow my uncrowned head...

Lord of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me, mould me to
The pattern Thou hast planned!

In the recording below, Paul Washer's wife shares her powerful testimony of coming to know the Lord at 32 years of age...after being a missionary, a preacher's wife, and active in church in church for years...

 

 
(Photo by Petr Kratochvil)

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29-31)

The past few months have been a whirlwind for Greg and I...and great is God's faithfulness. It is a miraulous and unexpected blessing to have the old version of followthelamb back online again. I pray it is a blessing and encouragement to you my sisters in Christ.

"Though the Lord has tried you for many months of afflictions, think it not strange, since you are put among God's children, that you have had and must have your own part of afflictions—they are, they shall be, your Father's love-tokens! Satan and unbelief often misrepresent God to His tried children. "If God was your Friend, your Father," say they, "if He loved you, He would not allow such grievous things to befall you—He takes no notice of you—He turns a deaf ear to your prayers—and who among God's children are so greatly afflicted as you are? Do not these things show that you have been deceived—that you are not among the number of God's children—that you have no saving interest in His special favor—but He lays these heavy strokes upon you in wrathful displeasure." And especially do they urge these things upon God's tried children from that sin which they sadly find to work in them under trying dispensations. And if they can but get God's children to hearken to them, these enemies gain their end upon them—to weaken their faith, to dampen their love, to slay their meekness and patience, and to cause them to murmur and fret at afflicting providence.

It is wisdom, then, in God's children, instantly to cry unto Him for wisdom and strength to discern and resist these enemies in their lying voice, upon the first hearing of it; for this we may be very certain of, "that whatever comes from God leads to Him—and whatever excites us to depart from Him as the God of all grace—is from unbelief and Satan." Nothing like faith in God's love to us, as His dear children in Christ—strengthens our spirits to endure afflictions patiently to His glory and our joy.

And therefore, says the apostle Paul, "whom the Lord loves, He chastens." He proposes the ‘love of God in chastening’ as the ground of a believer's faith, for his strength in patient suffering. And says James, "The trying of your faith works patience." If faith has got a thwart in the fight, God will come in with His auxiliary aid for the help of His child, and give his faith renewed strength; and then, instantly, his tried faith being made to stand upright in God and for Him, after its thwarting and in its trial, the child of faith is patience. Says faith—"God's love is in the sharpest stroke!" Then says patience—"I will endure it until love shall bring joyous fruit out of present grief." And lest patience should faint when trials are great and of long continuance, the apostle adds, "Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." It is as if he should say—You are to be made perfect in very grace, and every perfected grace to redound to your eternal glory—therefore patiently endure the greatest, the longest trial here, that is to fit you for your immortal crown hereafter—that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing—nothing lacking in the exercise of grace—and lacking nothing in your crown of glory!"

-- Anne Dutton (1692-1765)

 

After being away from my laptop for the better part of a week, I am excited to share the news that Greg Gordon and I are to be married in the Lord on October 23, 2011...

"This is the LORD'S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes." Psalm 118:23

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January 2012 update :: Click on the photo below to view more wedding photos...


Photo taken by Peter John Schrock on October 23, 2011

 

"The obedience of Christ is the obedience of all his people; the atonement of Christ is a propitiation for all his people's sins. In Christ we lived on earth, in Christ we died, in Christ we rose, and he "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places" in himself. As the apostle tells us that Levi was in the loins of Abraham when Melchisedec met him, so were we in the loins of Christ from before the foundation of the world; faith apprehends that blessed truth, and thus by faith we are experimentally in Christ Jesus.

Noah's Ark was a type of Christ. The animals that were preserved from the deluge passed through the door into the ark, the Lord shut them in, and high above the foaming billows they floated in perfect safety. We are in Christ in the same sense. He is the ark of God provided against the day of judgment. We by faith believe him to be capable of saving us; we come and trust him, we risk our souls with him, believing that there is no risk; we venture on him confident that it is no venture; giving up every other hope or shadow of a hope, we trust in what Jesus did, is doing, and is in himself, and thus he becomes to us our ark, and we are in him.

Another similitude may be taken from the old Jewish law. By God's commands certain cities were provided throughout all Canaan, that an Israelite who should slay his fellow at unawares, might flee there from the avenger of blood. The city of refuge no sooner received the manslayer than he was perfectly free from the avenger who pursued him. Once within the suburbs or through the gate, and the manslayer might breathe safely, the executioner would be kept at bay. In the same sense we are in Christ Jesus. He is God's eternal city of refuge, and we having offended, having slain, as it were, the command of God, flee for our lives and enter within the refuge city, where vengeance cannot reach us, but where we shall be safe world without end.

In the New Testament the Lord Jesus explains this phrase of being in himself in another way. He represents us as being in him as the branch is in the vine. Now, the branch derives all its nourishment, its sap, its vitality, its fruit-bearing power, from the stem with which it is united. It would be of no use that the branch should be placed close to the trunk, it would be of no service even to strap it side by side with the stem, it must be actually in it by a vital union. There must be sap-streams flowing at the proper season into it, life-floods gushing into it from the parent stem; and even so there is a mysterious union between Christ and his people, not to be explained but to be enjoyed, not to be defined but to be experienced, in which the very life of Christ flows into us, and we by the virtue that cometh out of him into us, become like unto him, and bring forth clusters of good fruit unto his honour and unto God's glory."

-- Charles Spurgeon

 "His ‘treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ ‘for thee.’ First, used for our behalf and benefit. Why did He expend such immeasurable might of mind upon a world which is to be burnt up, but that He would fit it perfectly to be, not the home, but the school of His children? The infinity of His skill is such that the most powerful intellects find a lifetime too short to penetrate a little way into a few secrets of some one small department of His working. If we turn to Providence, it is quite enough to take only one’s own life, and look at it microscopically and telescopically, and marvel at the treasures of wisdom lavished upon its details, ordering and shaping and fitting the tiny confused bits into the true mosaic which He means it to be. Many a little thing in our lives reveals the same Mind which, according to a well-known and very beautiful illustration, adjusted a perfect proportion in the delicate hinges of the snowdrop and the droop of its bell, with the mass of the globe and the force of gravitation. How kind we think it if a very talented friend spends a little of his thought and power of mind in teaching us or planning for us! Have we been grateful for the infinite thought and wisdom which our Lord has expended upon us and our creation, preservation, and redemption?. . . He says, ‘All that I have is thine.’ He holds nothing back, reserves nothing from His dear children, and what we cannot receive now He is keeping for us."

-- Frances R. Havergal

 

It is an honor and a joy to share the good news regarding the courtship between Greg Gordon and myself. The following is from Greg, and we covet your prayers for us as we continue to follow the Lamb wherever He may lead. I have copied Greg's announcement from his site sermonindex.net and pasted it below. God's ways truly are so much higher than our own. May His holy name be glorified:

"Brothers and Sisters,

I am very excited to share that for the last 4 months the Lord has brought a wonderful sister of the Lord into my life. We have had email communication and encouragements back in forth in the things of God. Right from the beginning the Lord made it very clear that this was something He was doing and was a special gift from above. We both have been very careful to ensure the Lord's will in these matters and every doubt or feeling was blown away by the Lords grace and providence. By God's grace yesterday and today I was able to get the blessing of all the Fathers in this matter for us to court towards marriage.

I am excited at what the next days and months will bring. We both ask that you be in prayer for us as we continue to get to know each other and share our feelings and the burdens of our heart. We ask you pray protection from any interference of the enemy in our relationship. And that the Lord would abundantly bless these days with joy, peace and self-control in the Holy Spirit. We are excited to be proceeding carefully in a courtship model and not in a worldly dating way. This is the Lord's doing and for His honour and glory.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." - James 1:17

"For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. “How great you are, Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears." - 2 Samuel 7: 21-22 (NIV)

"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and[a] knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" - Romans 11:33

May Jesus Christ be praised and honoured above all. All glory to the Lamb of God as we follow Him together.

Thank you saints!

Here is a picture of both of us, better ones to come I am sure:
http://www.sermonindex.net/revival/gregandbrandy2.jpg

And here is links to both of our twitter accounts please feel free to write notes to either of us and to pray:

http://twitter.com/#!/gregjgordon
http://twitter.com/#!/followTheLamb

--
Greg Gordon

 

Accepted, Perfect, and Complete,
For God's inheritance made meet!
How true, how glorious, and how sweet!

In the Beloved--by the King
Accepted, though not anything
But forfeit lives we had to bring.

And perfect in Christ Jesus made,
On Him our great transgressions laid,
We in His righteousness arrayed.

Complete in Him, our glorious Head,
With Jesus raised from the dead,
And by His mighty Spirit led!

O blessed Lord, is this for me?
Then let my whole life henceforth be
One Alleluia-song to Thee!

 

"Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man. Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.

We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. `No man can come to me,' said our Lord, `except the Father which hath sent me draw him,' and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for he act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: `Thy right hand upholdeth me.' In this divine `upholding' and human `following' there is no contradiction. All is of God, for as von Hugel teaches, God is always previous.

In practice, however, (that is, where God's previous working meets man's present response) man must pursue God. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine. In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: `As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?' This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it."

-- A.W. Tozer

 by Francis Ridley Havergal

O Jesus make Thyself to me
A living, bright reality,
More present to faith’s vision keen
Than any outward object seen,
More dear, more intimately nigh,
Than even the sweetest earthly tie.

And Thou, blest vision of my soul,
Hast made my broken nature whole,
Hast purified my base desires,
And kindled passion’s holiest fires!
My nature Thou hast lifted up
And filled me with a glorious hope.

Nearer and nearer still to me
Thou living, loving Savior be.
Brighter the vision of Thy face,
More glorious still Thy words of grace;
Till life shall be transformed to love,
A heaven below, a heaven above.

Note - I need to be reminded of and better apply the truth in this post as much (or maybe more) than you who read it. I pray it is a blessing:

"Think first of the motive principle that will make us love and faithfully keep the morning watch. If we take it upon us simply as a duty, and a necessary part of our religious life, it will very soon become a burden. Or, if the chief thought be our own happiness and safety, that will not supply the power to make it truly attractive. There is only one thing will suffice-the desire for fellowship with God.

It is for that we were created in God's likeness. It is that in which we hope to spend eternity. It is that alone can fit us for a true and blessed life, either here, or hereafter. To have more of God, to know Him better, to receive from Him the communication of His love and strength, to have our life filled with His,-it is for this He invites us to enter the inner chamber and shut the door.

It is in the closet, in the morning watch, that our spiritual life is both tested and strengthened. There is the battlefield where it is to be decided every day whether God is to have all, whether our life is to be absolute obedience. If we truly conquer there, getting rid of ourselves into the hands of our Almighty Lord, the victory during the day is sure. It is there, in the inner chamber, proof is to be given whether we really delight in God, and make it our aim to love Him with our whole heart.

Let this, then, be our first lesson: the presence of God is the chief thing, in our devotions. To meet God, to give ourselves into His holy will, to know that we are pleasing to Him, to have Him give us our orders, and lay His hand upon us, and bless us, and say to us, 'Go in this thy strength' -it is when the soul learns that this is what is to be found in the morning watch, day by day, that we shall learn to long for it and delight in it."

--Andrew Murray

For Many other free videos visit the website: www.sermonindex.net

The following is from a sermon entitled:
"A Heart In Harmony With The Throne Room of God"

By Al Whittinghill

"God has two throne rooms: one in the highest heaven and one in the lowliest of hearts. In these lowly, humble hearts God in great mercy has taken out the old, sinful heart and has put within a new heart, a heart that can know God, a heart in which is written the Word of Life and His own laws. In these hearts He is pleased to establish His throne. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, it changed his perspective to a heavenly one. It humbled his personality and gave him a holy purpose. When he wrote the words we find in Isaiah 57:15, he wrote directly from the heart of God, giving a revelation to us of the person who has a new heart: "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." The humble dwell with Him in His throne room.

In Isaiah 66:1-2 we see His other throne room: "Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest? [Where is the place that man could ever make for a habitation of God?] For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." When this man hears the word of God, he’s moved on the inside. He’s walking in the fear of God. He respects the Lord. "This is the person," God says, "in whom I will establish My throne room."

In the world system when something is broken, it is set aside. But in the Kingdom of God, He sets aside unbroken things. It is the precious, broken things that He uses to confound the wise and show the world His great glory through vessels of clay.

Our Lord Jesus emptied Himself. He who was the fullness of the Godhead bodily came from heaven, and He was tabernacled or veiled in flesh. Jesus was crucified. His blood was shed for you and me. He was buried, raised, ascended, and enthroned by the Father, and now He sends His Holy Spirit back into the world.

We sing, "Come into my heart, Lord Jesus," but He does not come as some ambiguous spirit. He comes to enthrone Himself in our throne room, to the broken, to the humble, to the contrite, to those who come knowing that they need the cross and that they’re a sinner who has no hope apart from the precious Blood of Jesus. They tear the veil of their flesh, and into their inner man, the spirit man, comes the risen, radiant Lord Jesus Christ. He is enthroned, and the Father’s throne room finds a place in us...

We have to come into an inner agreement—the throne room of our heart with God’s throne room. If you want to know what’s to be in your heart, if you want to know the attitude and atmosphere and what’s supposed to fill your heart, then you need to look at what is going on in the throne room of God. Whatever wouldn’t fit there mustn’t fit here. Whatever is going on there has to fit here. That’s the great key. In any aspect of revival, it is when God’s throne room is felt and known . . . 

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts, saith the Lord" (Isa. 55:9). We must have an elevated perspective. There must be a reality shift in us. It’s the upward call of God. I have to be like Paul who said, "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are [temporary] but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18). It’s the secret of the saints of old. They lived in the throne room of God.

It’s walking in His presence. "In thy presence is fullness of joy" (Psa. 16:11). This is not something we strive to attain. This is a pure gift of grace. If you’re a Christian you’re living in the heavenlies, and you’re seated with Christ by faith on the Life-side of the cross. You never forsake the cross, because it is to the broken and the contrite and those who take up the cross that the light shines through. Flesh and blood cannot reveal it to you but the Father which is in heaven (Matt. 16:17).

Have you seen beyond your church activities? Have you seen that you have the privilege of living without ceasing in the throne room of God and that He is saying, "Come unto Me, and come boldly by the Blood of Jesus to the throne of grace? There you will find that your needs are totally met in Me." . . . 

Our theology must become doxology, and the way to that is kneeology. Time alone with God in the Word of God. As He quickens us, He’ll open the Scriptures and our hearts will burn. And if our heart is set on fire, if our bones have radiance from the throne room, if that is in our bones where the blood is made, then we’ll have hot blood and it will course throughout our whole being. And it will affect everybody else. The Lamb is to reign on the throne of our hearts.

    So I ask you, are you in harmony with the throne room of God? Is there a Lamb on the throne of your heart? If you’re walking with Jesus as He wants you to walk, there’ll be a Lamb on the throne, and He will send you as He was sent—not in the same activity, but in the same character. This is our passion, to live in His throne room and to let that great throne room fill up this throne room of our heart. Friend, is the Lamb on the throne room of your heart? You must let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. You must bow your will and your knee day by day. Take His yoke daily and walk in the beauty of His holiness. This is the way He will send us out—praising Him, in the Word, open heavens, open heart, open Bible. The veil is gone. We abide in Him and He abides in us!"

I found the above sermon here: www.HeraldOfHisComing.com