Passionate Pursuit

Week Eleven: 12/25-12/29 Zechariah 2:5 “For I, says the Lord, will be a wall of fire all around her and I will be the glory in her midst.” I write this from a sweet place of victory. I’m not sure why, but the enemy sure knows how to derail every truth, victory, and promise given by God. I’m learning that in the attack, I am to hold tightly to every word given to me. As I began reading through the book of Zechariah, I noticed that when God told the Israelites to rebuild Jerusalem He told them to build without walls. One could easily think this would be a bad idea, but God wanted to stress the fact that He is a wall of fire for protection and the glory in their midst. I was talking to my teammate, Dani, and shared my struggle with building genuine relationships with people. I have built invisible walls of protection around myself out of fear. In this season the Lord is rebuilding and restoring my life, and part of that process is allowing my teammates and overseers to help me. No

Week Ten: 12/18-12/22 James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.”              I think this verse is pretty self explanatory, but it is definitely something I have to continuously remind myself when I feel far from the Lord. To draw near to God is to pursue an intimate relationship with Him. In the previous verse it says to resist the devil and he will flee from you, but our salvation is more than that. It’s allowing God to be the center of your heart and allowing your desires and will to align with His. In the Old Testament, priests had to wash their hands before going to God as part of their rituals. We need to recognize our sin and confess it to the Lord in order to go before Him in righteousness. As the priests washed their hands to symbolize an outward behavior, purifying your heart is an internal behavior. We are to purify our thoughts, motives, and desires of our heart. When I’m

Week Nine: 12/11-12/15 Ephesians 2:22 “In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit.” I’ve been reading through the book of Haggai this week for my devotional. This book is about the rebuilding of the temple of the Lord and reordering the spiritual priorities of the Jewish people. The people prolonged the building because they felt it wasn’t the right timing due to opposition. The people repented of this and the Lord therefore promised His blessing upon them and for His presence to dwell with them. Reading this made me realize that this time for me has been a rebuilding of myself as a temple for the Lord.   Through the Holy Spirit and God’s Word we are able to walk in obedience and allow the Lord to create in us a dwelling place for Him. I did this “Christian” walk for quite sometime before realizing I was just walking in circles. I was expecting God to radically transform my life when all I would do is live in comfort and live off of Sun

Week Eight: 12/4-12/8 Jeremiah 18:4 “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.”              This passage never meant much to me until this year, witnessing the potter and the clay demonstration by Pastor Mike. I never truly saw the symbolism with God being the potter and I being the clay. God has the power and authority to form and create us as He wishes. He even has the ability to dispose of us as he pleases and there would be no way to question this, as he is the potter and we are merely clay. To me this is comforting because I know that God is good and His Word tells me that He fights for me. My job as a daughter is to simply love Him, walk humbly, and be obedient to all He asks of me.   In those steps of obedience he creates in us character and forms us into the image of His Son. Sometimes we think life should look a certain way and so we try to plan our own w

Week Seven: 11/27-12/1 Philippians 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” This is something I remind myself daily; I’m a work in progress. I know I’m no longer who I was, but I’m not yet who the Lord intends me to be. He’s shaping and molding me day by day. This week the Lord has been teaching me about resting in the promises that He’s given me through His Word. I was reading through the book of Joel and came across this verse: “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” My relationship with my family immediately came to mind. Not all of my siblings are saved and not all have received healing from our upbringing. They have been weighing heavy on my heart and I ask the Lord, “How much longer until we are restored as a family?” It’s easy to lose heart in the process and think that the Lord has stopped the work that He has begun. That night the Lord put it on m