Song

This morning I awoke with the following song in my heart. Take a look.

Song is a powerful thing in the Lord isn't it? It almost feels like you are there. I guess that is the purpose isn't it? When the Lord gives us a song in our hearts, He is in effect trying to take us to another place. He is bringing us into His Presence where His Voice can be heard more clearly. When you hear the music, move towards it. Song is a powerful thing in the Lord.

I once heard Henry Gruver with Joyful Sound Ministries tell a story about how God taught him this principle. As a very young man at the age of 18, he began spending one night a week passing out Bible tracts on the Skid Row streets of Phoenix in 1961. He would walk around after dark and pass out his material to whomever would take one. After many weeks of doing this he started noticing most of his tracts were blowing around in the wind on the ground, having been continually discarded by the people he was handing them to.

In frustration he went to the Lord and asked him how to more effectively minister to the people. The Lord's response to him was simple: "When you walk, I will put a song in your heart and I will give you peace. Only walk where you continually have that song and have that peace. If ever at anytime you lose that song and that peace, stop and go back to the last place you had it and either stay there or continue walking in another direction. Wherever you go, maintain that peace and that song. Now start walking!" (I am trying to repeat the words as best as I remember Henry tell them).

So Henry re-engages the streets of Phoenix. He goes back out one night and the Lord gives him a song in his heart and gives him peace. He continues to walk only when and where he has them. If he stepped onto a sidewalk or in a direction where he lost that song and that peace, he would back up, go to the last place that he remembered having it, and go in another direction. On this night, he eventually finds himself standing still outside of the front door of a tavern in one particular area of downtown. That is where the Lord led him. Everytime he would try to move from that spot he would lose his song and his peace. So he finally just committs to standing still on the sidewalk where the Lord placed him.

All of the sudden, out of nowhere, a drunk man comes flying out of the door of the tavern and charges directly at Henry. The man ran right up to him, got right in his face and started screaming at him. The man was demon possessed. Suddely the man rears back and tries to punch Henry in the face. When he did he completely missed Henry who is just standing there with his feet glued to the ground. Henry can't move. He's just standing there and everytime the man tries to punch him he "miraculously" misses. The Lord was causing him to miss and protecting his servant, who was abiding in God's song and God's peace.

At that point Henry began to pray and ask the Lord to make this man go away. While all of this was happening people were just pouring out of the tavern because a fight was breaking out. So here is Henry, just standing there with his pockets bulging with tracts and people standing everywhere around him. Suddenly the demoniac turns around and goes back into the tavern. At that point God focused Henry's attention on a man standing in the crowd watching what was going on. The Lord told him to go tell the man that Jesus loved him. So Henry walks over, tells this guy that Jesus loves him, and the man just breaks down and starts crying and confessing that he knows that what Henry is telling him is true. Then the Lord speaks to Henry to minister to another man in the crowd who is just standing their crying as he is watching all of this unfold. The presence of the Lord just broke forth in the moment and started dealing with the hearts of the people, and all because an 18 year old kid started walking with a song in his heart. Suddenly people in the crowd are asking him for tracts. He completely emptied his pockets of tracts before the police showed up.  

The point I believe we need to make is this. When we get up in the morning and engage life itself, we need to be listening for a song. Jesus will give us a song if we will listen for it. One of the key ways that his voice manifests is in SONG. It is a powerful manifestation of the voice of the Lord. Look at the following verse:

"For God does speak - now one way, now another - though man may not perceive it." Job 33:14

The word "perceive" in this verse is the Hebrew word Shoor. Shoor is defined two ways in Hebrew. One, it means to be perceptive or discerning. Secondly, it means to stroll about with a song in your heart. So according to the Hebrew language, a person who is discerning and perceiving what God is saying in his heart is a person that also continually has a song in the heart......Do you remember the prophet Elisha? In 2 Kings 3 we find him ministering prophetically to the kings of Israel, Edom and Judah...but not before the music starts playing.

"But now bring me a harpist. While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha and he said......" 2 Kings 3:15

Elisha prophesied as the harpist was playing. Elisha could perceive and discern the mind of Christ because he could hear the song, the joyful sound.

"Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance." Psalm 89: 15.

Worship helps facilitate a flow of the voice of the Lord. Actually, spiritual worship in the form of a song is  the beginnings of the voice of the Lord. He gives a song to us. He speaks to us in song.

"He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God." Psalm 40:3

It serves two purposes in our walks with the Lord. One, we hear God in song as we are fellowshipping with him in prayer. Two, we hear God in song as we go about God's business on the streets of our cities and communities, our jobs and our homes, among our families and friends and among people we do not yet know. The Lord speaks to us in song continually if we will just listen to our hearts. Song is a manifestation of the voice of the Lord. When you are hearing a psalm, hymn or spiritual song you are, in effect, hearing God's voice. Consider the following two verses.

"...be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, ....." Ephesians 5:18,19

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." Colossians 3:15,16

Our hearts should be an atmosphere where both peace and the word of God (the voice of God) dwells in us in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Peace and Song go together as we are "in Christ."

"If any man be in Christ he is a new creation."  2 Corinthians 5:17

The voice of the Lord will carry with us throughout the day, from the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to bed, and even throughout the night at times, in Song. When we go before the Lord in prayer we reach for him, exam ourselves, respond to conviction if he brings it, and then we move in Song. As we leave the closet and go forth in His Work we can expect a continaution of the peace of God that accompanies Song. Song is a powerful thing in the Lord because Song is in fact the manifestation of his voice in one of its various forms.

Can you hear the joyful sound? Can you hear the Song the Lord is giving to you today? Ask for a song and go forth in peace. Ask him for it. It's a part of our inheritance in Him. Be Blessed.

JEB

http://www.miraclesinmerida.blogspot.com/

jayblackshear@yahoo.com

The First Shall be Last...The Last Shall be First

Last week, I, Jay, took a 5 day trip back to the states to tie up some loose ends from our move to Merida and to visit with friends and family along the way. On the first day of my trip on August 3rd the Lord spoke the same thing to me on three seperate occasions in the same day. Each time it was through a different set of circumstances but all of them tied in together and all of them together had one meaning. Here is the story.

My flight out of Merida left at 7 AM via Continental Airlines. I had to be at the airport at 5 AM. After getting my boarding passes and getting through security, while sitting at the gate watching the rest of the passengers arrive, an American couple came and sat down next to me. We were on the same flight to Houston Airport to catch different connecting flights. I struck up a conversation with them and found out that they were a Christian couple, that he was actually a pastor of a church in South Carolina and they had taken a trip here to check on a Christian Seminary in Merida that they were affiliated with. As the conversation continued I asked them how long their layover was in Houston before catching their next flight. They told me they had an hour and a half. I knew this could be a problem for them because it usually takes a minimum of one hour in the Houston airport to deboard your plane, get through customs, claim your bags, go through immigration, go through the baggage security check for domestic flights, catch a rail train to an adjoining terminal, recheck any bags at the gate and then board your plane. I know this first hand. I endured this back in May coming back from Merida on my first trip down, trying to catching my adjoining flight to San Antonio, RUNNING through parts of the airport. It was very stressful and I almost missed my adjoining fight.

Needless to say I was concerned about this couple making it so I offered to help them through the process. I had a 3 hour layover before my adjoining flight to Shreveport so I offered to take some of that time to help them with guidance, carrying bags.....whatever. As we got into Houston our first obstacle presented itself right away. This couple and I were both seated in the back three rows of the plane. There were over 150 people seated on this plane. It was packed. It took us at least 15 minutes to deboard. Then we got to immigration and there was a very long line. We processed through immigration and then got to the baggage terminal. The stewardesses had announced to us that our luggage would be on carousel #8. It wasn't. I got to the baggage carousel ahead of them and figured out that the luggage was on carousel #7. So when they got there behind me I redirected them to the right carousel. They grabbed their bags. We headed to the security checkpoint to get our scanned through for our next flight and found ourselves in a very, very long line. I looked at this couple and told them not to panic, that the line would move quickly for us. And boy did it ever. God saw to it. Right at that moment a security agent walked right up to me and this couple and said, "Right this way." They took us an opened up a new security screener and placed us in the front of that new line. A smile came over my face and a passage of scripture came to my heart.

Matthew 19:30 "But many who are first shall be last, and many who are last will be first."

I remember hearing that in my heart and feeling a sense of peace and joy for this couple. God was helping them in their time of need. You could see they were stressed. They were an older graying couple and they needed help. God took them out of last place in line and put them right through the screening process, helping them to make their adjoining flight on time. And as an added bonus I got to go with them....because I was helping them by being in the back of the line with them. The thing that I understand about this, even as I write this, is that if I had left the weak to themselves and gone on and only been concerned with myself, I would have ended up farther towards the front of that long line at the baggage screening. But it would have taken me longer to actually get through that checkpoint because I wouldn't have been standing in the very back of the line with that couple when we ALL got promoted to the front.

The Father blesses us when we hang out with the weak and serve them in humility. He promotes us in due season....to the front of the line. The world has pushed the weak and the less fortunate to the back of the line with no concern for their welfare. But God in his sovereignty raises us up at certain points in time with resources to help each other. The resources I had to give these two members of the Body of Christ was extra time, physical strength and a knowledge of the airport in Houston to help them while they were in a tight spot. The Father offered me an opportunity to give out of my abundance and in the process all of us were blessed.

And the story doesn't end there. I then ended up on my adjoining flight to Shreveport....and I can tell you I have never flown on such a small plane in my life. It only sat 33 people and it had the propellers on both sides, not the jet engines you see on most planes. I ended up sitting in the very back of the plane, seat 16A. I was in Last Place on this plane. After all the passengers boarded the lone stewardess walked to the very back of the plane, looked right at me and said, "We need two people to come sit in the very front row of the plane....right now!" She looked at me as if I didn't have a choice. So I got up along with another lady and we went and sat right in the very front row. The obvious reason for this was to balance the weight of the aircraft for take-off. But God was reaffirming something to me for the second time in as many hours. The stewardess looks at me and the other lady that was moved to the front with me and explained to both of us that being in the seats we were know sitting in came with a particular set of responsibilities. We would now be expected to help the other passengers off of the plane in the event of an emergency. We were now "Deputized." We both agreed and the plane took off.

So here I am again for the second time in the same day going from being in the back of the line to the very front of the line in a matter of seconds. And both instances are happening because I was either serving the Lord by helping the weak and needy or.... being positioned to help others in case of emergency. 

And it doesn't end there. Jesus likes to clinch the nail. Let everything be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses (2 Cor 13:1).  So I finally get to Shreveport around 2PM. My former pastor who I was staying with had to leave town unexpectedly because of a death in the family. So I ended up staying with two of his grandsons in his home who were house-sitting for him. One was his grandson Josh (20 years old) and the other was Matthew (11). I had known Josh since he was seven years old but had never met Matthew prior to this trip. I ended up taking them out to dinner at Chile's as a thank you for picking me up at the airport. As we were at the restaurant, getting reaquainted and talking about all sorts of things, Matthew looks at me and says;

"The First Shall be Last.....and the Last Shall be First."

I'm not kidding. God was speaking to me through an eleven year old boy who was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and french fries. And at this point I was slowly starting to realize that the voice of the Lord was echoing through a multitude of circumstances. In Romans 1:28 it says the following:

"Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind...."

I italicized and underlined the word "retain." In the Greek that word means "echo." What Paul is saying in this verse is that people get in trouble when they don't allow the voice of the Lord to "echo" in their hearts. God speaks with an echo by saying the same things over and over to cause truth to settle into us. The Lord speaks through the mouth of babes and he speaks through the symbolism of our physical circumstances...among other things. He speaks in dreams, visions, through the mouths of prophets.....

For God does speak -  now one way, now another - though man may not perceive it." Job 33:14

The Lord speaks to us in a multitude of ways and with and echoing voice. His voice echoes. What was happeing to me that day was an echoing of his voice in circumstances, through people, and within my own heart. His voice was echoing.

And what was he saying to me? The conclusion of the matter is this: We live in a time where God is sitting in judgment on his people, our communities, our circles of fellowship and the world itself. This is an hour of judgment at all levels. And what we will see him doing as we go forward is promoting many members of the Body into more and more of the fullness of their callings. We are going to see people who are Last becoming First.....and we are more and more going to see people who are spending their lives in fleshly self-promotion going to the back of the line. God is humbling the wicked, publicly and privately. He is blessing the righteous who are willing to serve the Body in humility, but he is humbling members of the body of Christ who have been living in self-promotion, not living lives fully dedicated to him.

The counsel I am going to walk away with from the events of August 3rd are this: Be were God has placed you, endure hardship like a good soldier, be among the weak as God positions you in the Body and among non-believers. He will empower us. He will equip us. He will provide for us. He will provide for each one of us in differnet ways and at different times, often through each other. Be humble. Be meek. Be gentle. Serve one another in Humility. The Lord will see your willingness and your humility and he will promote you in due season. He will make the First Last and the Last......God will make First. He promoted Joseph. He promoted David. And he will promote us in small ways and in large IF, IF we are humble. Let God assign you to the back of the line, the back of the plane, so that he can promote you.

Be Blessed
The Blackshears