Posted in Girl Meets Paper, Monday Morning Meditations, Spirituality, The Love of God

Egyptolidolatry

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God’s Thoughts to Me

What sorrow awaits those who look to Egypt for help, trusting their horses, chariots, and charioteers and depending on the strength of human armies instead of looking to the Lord, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 31:1, NLT).

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15, NLT).

Then Jesus said, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28, NLT).

The Flesh Pots of Egypt

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As a child, I always refered to important sounding words I didn’t understand as “big words”. Well, Egyptolidolatry would have seemed larger than life to my little mind.

And there, is a great deception, for apart from the fact that this “big word” is only my brain child, it actually refers to the eternally uselessness of the ways of the world … the “Egypts” through all the ages. The idols man so willingly pays homage to.

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Looking at ancient Egypt, we see they had at least the common sense, if you could call it that, to worship something bigger and apart from themselves. They were very religious and had a whole plethora of gods and goddesses.

Each one had their own role to play in maintaining peace, stability and harmony accross the land. They even had a god, Nun, who together with a few other like Ben-Ben, were the gods of creation. Nun was the dark waters of chaos.

Looking at the current political, economical and social scene of modern Egypt, we see that the sorrow the prophet Isaiah spoke of so many centuries ago, has finally caught up with the Egyptians.

But another dangerous, monstrous, peculiar Egypt has pitched its tent around the minds and thought processes of the human race; Humanism! This one is a subtle foe … beautiful in appearance … heroic in action … the pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of foe!

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This is the one who whispered to our first parents that they were able to know what good and evil were apart from our Pappa who alone is good. In other words … they had the ability to be their own gods.

Solomon did say that there is truly nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Am I correct when I come to the conclusion that humanism was birthed by the first lie ever told to the human race by the father of all lies?

According to the Free Dictionary, humanism means, “A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities and worth.” And it says it all! Man has started to worship himself … not just an Egypt, but the chariots and charioteers as well.

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Is it any wonder that chaos, darkness, sorrow, decay, destruction and all the rest have taken over in this world, with an evil prince ruling the hearts and minds of those who do not follow our sweet, loving, gentle, kind Lord Jesus, for the whole world lies in the evil one (1 John 5:19).

Even the modern church scene speaks a funny language with words like positive-thinking, self-potential, self-worth, self-this and self-that!

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But our Lord Jesus, the King of my heart, the Love of my life, said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:24-25, NIV).”

This is a mouthful and can be easily misunderstood or misused by religionists to have power over those they want to lord it over.

My translation of this verse goes someting like this, “Mia, stop trying to save yourself, dear one, for you truly don’t have what it takes. Just come to me, for with you nothing is possible, but with me, everything is!! Stop huffing and puffing … striving and trying … chasing your shadow or the wind! It is of no use.”

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And when we, at some stage of our lives, come to that place where we understand these words of our Lord, we still hear and always will, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28, NIV).”

Dear Ones, let us all run to the One who is able to save us to the utmost. Let us leave our Egypts behind and run into His Loving Embrace!

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with

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Posted in Garden of Eden, Garden of my Heart, God's Father Heart, God's Favor, Grace, Holy Spirit, Invisible Illness, Jesus Christ, My Freshly Brewed Life, Shulamite, Spirituality, The Love of God

The Dance of Desires

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God’s Thoughts to Me

May He grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed (Psalm 20:4, NLT).

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4, NLT).

Sanctified Desires

I allow my mind to wander back down the avenues of time and desires … back to the time when I was living in a world of self-derivation. imageI was living a lie that man could be autonomous … the time when I was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I was trapped in the fowler’s snare, believing I was able to determine, on my own terms, what good and evil were.

The time when I was wandering outside the Garden of Love, separated from the presence of our Pappa and His Majesty, King Jesus. I was residing in the Land of Shame … being the captive of that cruel dictator. Nothing I did ever seemed to merit his approval!

Whenever I did something honorable, he would pierce my heart with arrows of condemnation for having a prideful heart. But this coin had another side … every time I did something wrong, my heart was shredded into pieces for being such a detestable creature, a shame to mankind, an excuse of a human being.

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An unworthy Christian, unworthy of receiving the slightest consideration or love from anyone … least of all from my Pappa or His elite corps of Christians, according to my estimation, in the church. Receiving tons and tons of rejection seemed like business as usual and definitely what I deserved.

This was not a comfortable place to be, for I honestly believe that Pappa made a big mistake in creating me and the way I was treated by important people in my life only confirmed my suspicions about myself.

I was even indoctrinated by religious blah-blah-blah into thinking that this view of myself was proof of an extremely selfish heart. And this made me wander further and further down the road of self-loathing.

image Looking at the human race, I realize that we were all created with a big empty, yearning heart that can only find peace and love from the source of all love … the God who is Love! No one or nothing else can ever serve as a substitute! Bur our obstinate hearts need to go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death before we finally realise this truth and reach out to grab the waiting Heavenly Hand.

That was when I started to hear the sweet voice of the Holy Spirit whispering mysteries to my heart. His Wisdom was standing at the crossroads of my life, actually, my whole existence, calling me, urging me to enter into a Kingdom of Love … a Kingdom of Acceptance … a Kingdom of incredible beauty, with a King of Love, the Prince of Peace.

He was yearning for my return from my wanderings as I was searching, like the Shulamite, for my Beloved in the streets of Jerusalem … until I heard a voice calling from mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem.

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Yes, she was calling me out of Egypt of organized religion, but the Pharao of my Egypt only allowed me a few excursions into the wilderness to worship my Father. The desires of my heart kept calling me back to the same-old, same-old familiarity of the world.

What a blessed day when I was finally delivered from the slavery to that cruel king; when his whole army of soldiers was drowned in the Red Sea as they tried to recapture me, to force me back into slavery to the world and its ways. The Pharao realized that my days of free labour came to an end and this enraged him for he was losing another forced labourer. imageBut … I was also carrying a lot of gold from Egypt into my wilderness wanderings and sooner rather than later, I had a few golden calves erected as I grew tired of waiting on our Lord to show me His glory. I was dancing to my hearts delight around the idols of morality, theology, bibliolatry and a lot of Nicolaitan teachings.

But thankfully Pappa sent a whole brood of poisonous snakes to bring me to my senses. As I was at the gates of death and hopelesness, I finally looked up to the cross and SAW … really SAW our Lord Jesus. That was the time when I was crying like the Israelites in the wilderness, when they were testing our Pappa and the poor Moses, longing for the pots of Egypt, filled with meat, watermelons and all the bread I thought my heart needed (Exodus 16:3). I had a heart of stone with many rules written on its tablets.

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These two Scripture verses were my ticket to everything my deceitful heart desired and I thought delighting myself in the Lord meant singing praise and worship songs Sundays at church. I know now that I was only delighting my flesh and this offer had to be repeated week after week after week, just like the altar system of the old covenant of law … a never-ending cycle.

Pappa, though, never seemed to keep His side of the bargain and I was frustrated with His lack of fulfilling His promise, for my soulish desires were as unfulfilled as ever … with me being convinced that it was the yearnings of my heart!

Yet, He was not procastinating … He was bringing me to the end of myself. He brought a debilitating illness into my life and just like Paul, I was overwhelmed beyond my ability to endure. Just like him, I stopped being my own source of strengh and trust (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). I started to draw my whole existence from the Life of our Lord Jesus … living from the Bread of Life … feasting and drinking from the Fountain of Love! I was finally able to cross the Jordan river into Canaan … into our Lord Jesus. The shadow of the Sabbath became flesh and reality in my life … Emmanuel … God with me … God in me.

image The cry of my heart changed dramatically from expecting Pappa to cater to my fleshly, carnal desires, to desiring only His will … needing to live in Him moment to moment. He gracefully changed my desires and plans as I learned to praise Him from the depths of my being, living where it is only Him and me … in a never-ending communion of love … a beautiful dance of being ( The Shack).

There in our secret place nothing could close the windows of heaven as He showered me with all His spiritual delights. Looking back at 2012, I fall to my knees and thank my Pappa for His wisdom and grace for allowing this illness and using what I thought of as evil, as an incredible good, to draw me into His life … into His love … into His heart … into His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

FCB Member

I have the honor  today to be part of a new link-up at My Freshly Brewed Life. Thank you, Barbie, for your new Weekend Brew. Come join us at http://myfreshlybrewedlife.com/.
I am also linking up with Mindy at http://www.newequus.com/author/mindybowman/. Thank you for the opportunity Mindy!
And the Extraordinary Ordinary.
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