2 Chr 6 God's House, Solomon's Prayer!

I consider this the highpoint in Solomon's life. Like a Goliath experience for him, I would call it. He prays like he expected God to hear him. God did hear him, we know now. What a delight to see the many answers to Solomon's prayer over the centuries and the true fruition of salvation in Christ as the fulfillment above all fulfillments.

Meditation about David and Nathan's conversation about building a house for God.

1Chr

David and Nathan. I want to build for God. Go right ahead, sounds like a good idea…

Wait a minute. Who do you think you are? Where is God in this building project? Am I not even consulted, God asks? How about let’s pray about it for a little time and see what God says about this. There is no precedence. How about let’s ask some godly people for advice on this. We have been guilty of presumption on a couple of other occasions. How about we carefully consider this idea for a while?

No. So many times we jump headlong into construction projects for our own glory, don’t we?

God says I am insulted at the lack of consideration but so delighted that it was for me that I am starting a building project with you in mind David. You will not have to worry about the Holy Spirit pulling out on you like Saul. I am going to have you at the center of the building project of eternity. Your son will be God the Son. How about that for a building project? No building for you, nice thought but your hands are way too bloody to put upon a House with my name on it. Son will build and I will build and we will trade. I love you, said God to David, but no. Didn’t I already make you one of the great names in history and you want more?

David. God is holy and yet God is so interactive with David. Halleluia, He is exalted. Halleluia, He is willing to be entreated for our desires and He parses between the pride of our entreaties and the heart of our requests. God is great. He is no respecter of persons. He will be entreated for His spirit and if you really want Him. He will be in a relationship with you. But, He is more real than we sometimes want to be.

He knows our names---With Tender Hand~He lifted me!

Sunday Morning's sermon at Central Church of God

Lead on, O King Eternal, The day of march has come; Henceforth in fields of conquest Thy tents shall be our home. Thro' days of preparation Thy grace has made us strong, And now, O King Eternal, We lift our battle song.

Lead on, O King Eternal, Till sin's fierce war shall cease, And holiness shall whisper The sweet Amen of peace; For not with swords loud clashing, Nor roll of stirring drums, With deeds of love and mercy The heav'nly kingdom comes.

Lead on, O King Eternal, We follow, not with fears; For gladness breaks like morning Where'er Thy face appears; Thy cross is lifted o'er us; We journey in its light: The crown awaits the conquest; Lead on, O God of might.

How God storms the Bastilles of our hearts with Grace and Mercy! Mercy and Grace will follow me, all of the days of my life… The sermon on Sunday was not of my doctrinal perspective, but it was truly the heart of God for His people.

Behold!

Look for me! God is saying. Are we looking for Him to even address us? Are we beholding His dealings with us in our relationship with Him in the Churches (that is who He was talking to, the churches) God said He is following hard after the souls that are following after Him. (Like the Philistines following Saul in combat in 1 Chronicles) He is standing at the door and knocking! Why isn't He in the Church?

If anyone opens the door

That means the church does more than just shake his hand in decorum and politeness, He will be in their life(the life of the church, that is). God is storming our hearts with Himself. He is supping with us to find the need and meet the need of our hearts. That is the deepest condescenscion. He has a vendetta of mercy (as it were) that He is pointing at us. God’s love is deliberate and intentional.

We can't really appropriate this on our own. It is a corporate promise and We receive it in conjunction with our allegiance to the disciplines of Church membership and fellowship. Some of it is personally received, but God's promise here and his knocking is on the door of the Church after repentance and forgiveness was received. His Church is the outworking of that.

To the utmost, Jesus saves! The delicate and the sublime and the needy and unchurched are both stormed by God’s intensity. New York kind of in your face religion and the polite and delicate neat church of the NC are both won to Christ’s intensity of getting into your life reality. What do we want? The Pastor preached a little while ago. Conformity to Christ?

When do we want it? If we are waiting to pursue Christ for a better day we are the ones missing out on the healing hand of God in our deepest need. Halleluia, What a Savior! Free at last, Free at last...(Our souls most imminent need)Redemption accomplished!

Lead on Oh King Eternal—Storm us for your glory!

Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. Revelation 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Finding and implementing the means of Grace, my prayer.

This is a link to John Owen's blessed treatise...

One needs a huggin and one needs a spankin’ and---one’s on the way! Thoughts on the wisest mother, I've met.

1 Corinthians 13--Love is the more excellent way.

What a blessed memory to see Mother Walker and her vast heart knowledge of 15 children. She was a treasure trove. She was truly a helpmeet answering to the extremity of the husband that God had given her. The Reverend was a man of the word and precision. His words were severe and manifold and hers were few and a balm. She lay on a bed of sickness for most of the years that I knew her. Still, her healing words and healthful demeanor sat more with me than anything else about her. I tried to pry words out of her, about other things. “How can I do what you do?” Was my ulterior motive. She wasn’t giving out that secret easily.

Somehow it seemed to lie in the way she cooked a turkey. Here, Jayne, she said to me, one Thanksgiving eve. Take the leg and work this turkey with me. We massaged the seasonings into the bird. It is in the wrists. I wanted to say what Ez says to me on the courts. Let me have your racket, It looks like you have a string attached from your racket to the ball and I want mine to have that. Mom, you have some magic power when it comes to your children, don't you? No, it doesn’t come by basting or by marinating. "Just sitting the chicken or the turkey in the juices is not the trick to what I do", says Mother Walker. (I'm talking in present tense because she is still mothering us from heaven.) It is in the wrist work and your hands will get red and buttery from the seasonings and you might cut yourself on a bone or two when you go to get the seasonings on the inside of the turkey. But, it is not something that happens automatically in any way shape or form. You have to purpose it and get your hands dirty.

Lorretta Lynn acted it out. Mother Walker’s hands were on the radio whenever the Pastor said we are praying for the children. Her hands were on her children at all appropriate moments that they needed it and her hands were dirtied with the paprika and butter mixture that God had given her. God gave me this season to get God’s love into them and I am about that and that alone,she instructed, by her obedience to the call, because that is God’s priority. Love is the priority for the children. Why? I questioned so often. Why is love the priority in childhood? She said God will have to show you that, by her wordless expressions. I am still seeking the answer.

The Half has not been Fancied...Each Day HE Grows much sweeter than He was the day before!

1 Kings 10:1 1 Kings 10:7 Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard.

Is not this the increase of the human race that woman and man can act in the original function. The challenge of proving the truths that have been discovered. Solomon may have taken the inheritance of faith and it’s outworkings in wisdom for granted. God had blessed him with his desire, to know the real outworkings of the scripture in the governing of God’s people and this spilled over into every other sphere.

So many times this is the case that woman is answerable and complement to man’s discoveries. I think of Madame Curie as one of my most admired. She held the questions in her mind that Pierre’s answers had already uncovered. She turns, as it were, the problem over in another way and tries him with hard questions and thus sharpens his perspectives.. Blessed is the man who challenges himself with many curious women and lets himself be intimidated to study by their supposed impertinence or challenge.

Women of questions, in every generation, have been despised and frowned upon for their untoward questions about things that to others are so obvious. God made us to be this way. True that this perspective, led to the fall of the race. What if? What if? What if the serpent is right? She pondered. What if this is an advancement that we are missing out on? Her husband could have reproved her thinking. But, he chose to follow her down the path that we are now upon. He didn’t take authority over her unbridled mental acumen. Here we are, fallen. Solomon’s day woman had risen again to discuss these wise things with men of God. (she had to be a queen, though, even to discuss her thoughts) From the ends of the earth she would come, because no woman would ask Solomon of these things who was of the covenant. Heresy? God subdued the risen and unsaved woman and ravished her will under the authority of the wisdom of God. I am so glad that Jesus loves, even me! HE is never taken aback by womanly expressions of unbelief. HE saves to the uttermost, all who come to God by Him.

“The half has not been fancied…” Christ is truly sweeter!

To Jesus ev'ry day I find my heart is closer drawn; He's fairer than the glory of the gold and purple dawn; He's all my fancy pictured in its fairest dreams, and more; Each day He grows still sweeter than He was the day before.

Refrain: The half cannot be fancied this side the golden shore, Oh, there He'll be still sweeter than He ever was before.

His glory broke upon me when I saw Him from afar; He's fairer than the lily, brighter than the morning star; He fills and satisfies my longing spirit o'er and o'er; Each day He grows still sweeter than He was the day before.

My heart is sometimes heavy, but He comes with sweet relief; He folds me to His bosom when I droop with blighting grief; I love the Christ who all my burdens in His body bore; Each day He grows still sweeter than He was the day before.