GRACE Lesson #7

My original prayer to My Heavenly Father was "God, I want to know your grace, not just in my head but in my heart.  I want to know what it is to receive Your grace as Your child."  To that, may I now add, be careful what you pray for. I am so heartsick, my dear peeps.  Oh, that dark little closet in my heart that God put His finger on, truly, I tell you I did not know it was there!  Now, God is bringing out gently and lovingly and slowly the things in that closet and I am so heartsick.  Why?  Because I didn't know they were there. Because it makes me ill to know that I've this stuff inside my heart and it is not pleasing to my Father who loves me so much.  Because I know what a horrific price Jesus paid to set me free and I find I have been a prisoner to this junk in the closet.  So, what is this junk.  I was shocked. Truly, I was.  If you would have asked me, I would have never saw myself like this.  This is proof of the wonderful Holy Spirit that Jesus sent to me from Father.  The truth is this....I am an angry person.  I am easily offended.  I hold grudges.  I am resentful.  Oh, how sad this makes me to know these things!  However, God is good and as I sit at His feet crying over my shock & horror, He strokes my hair lovingly and let's me know He still loves me and that we will work on this, and He won't leave me in this horrific mess.  That I can praise God for now in the midst of this muck & mess. How did I find this out?  Yesterday, God showed me I was easily offended.  Gentle, isn't He?  I thought long and hard about this and admitted to God, yes, He was right to please forgive me and help me.  But this morning, yep, more closet cleaning and that's when the rest of the junk came tumbling out.  You know like you see in the cartoons a closet is so filled when one thing is removed the whole closet starts falling out? So, what am I to do?  I must choose......do I ignore what I now know and keep living with a nasty closet or do I be obedient and submit to my Father who loves me so much and let Him work thru me and with me to make this closet a cleaned out holy place where He can be?  I choose the latter.  You see, God withholds no blessing from us....so why do we not have MORE of His blessings in our lives?  It's because of these closets in our hearts.  Our hearts are much like glasses we drink from.....the water is either pure or not.  It's always a work in progress to check our water condition!  When my water glass (heart) is filled with something nasty, there is no room for God to put the blessing in.  The junk takes up all the glass space.  HOWEVER, if I will allow God to show me the junk in the glass and help me to get rid of the junky water in my glass, then guess what?  YEP, GOD HAS SPACE TO WORK HIS BLESSINGS INTO MY GLASS (SOUL, LIFE, HEART)! So, I want nothing held back because I want all of God that I can hold and more.  I often pray, "God, fill me up with You and when I can hold no more, stretch me so that I can hold more."  That too can be a painful process.....the stretching part.  But, my peeps, it is so worth it. You know the verse in the Bible that states we are refined as silver?  Do you know how a silversmith works?  He takes silver, with all its impurities and places it in a very very hot fire to melt it down. He NEVER LEAVES THE POT!  While the silver gets hotter and hotter, dross, or the junk in the silver, comes to the top and the silversmith skims it off and throws it away.  Eventually, through all the fire, stirring, constant watching, constant cleaning, the silver emerges perfect, shiny beautiful without any spot or blemish to mar its beauty. I'm sure no one enjoys the fire, the stirring, etc. but I ask you, is it not worth it in the end?  I want to be a shining pure beautiful vessel my Father can show proudly that I may be used of Him to be salt and light in this dark world. That my peeps, is the lesson I will be working on today.  Right now, I am very "bruised", "hurt" and "sad".  However, my Father, ever wonderful and good, is cuddling me right now, lovingly stroking my head and when my strength returns and the shock & pain subside, He & I will continue cleaning my heart's closet. Hugs & love to all.......