It's wonderful that He really is quite willing to teach us what we don't know so that we can live in this place, dwell in this place, this high and holy place. To live there, to dwell there requires, first and foremost, the fear of the Lord. And it's not a fear like you might have feared mum and dad when you were growing up because you didn't want a spanking for something that you had done wrong. But it's a fear of that's based on the knowledge of just Who and what God really is and that He is holy, He's holy, He's sovereign in His power. He does show mercy, He does show compassion but He is the Sovereign Lord and God. We don't want to try to reverse those roles or it becomes increasingly difficult, but the time will come when you’ll love those new roles.

The Word says, “Teach me your way O Lord, that I may walk and live in Your truth; direct and unite my heart [solely, reverently] to fear and honor Your name.” (Psalm 86:11 AMPC) This is what I'm talking about, this fearing of sin, that you might honor His name. You don't want to sin; you fight against sin in your own soul because you want to be pleasing to Him. You want to be pleasing so badly that you will do anything, go through anything, hear whatever you need to hear to be changed, because you no longer live for the honor of your own name. Some of His lessons come in deep valleys of humility. They're the most important lessons that we learn, that we might walk on the mountain in the glory with Him.

So, I want to encourage you tonight that when you're alone in your prayer closet with the Lord, pull the Word out, pull the Bible out. Find Scriptures that exalt Him in His glorious ways and in His glorious person, Scriptures out of Psalms that speak of lauding in His excellence. You want to praise Him for all that He is because all that is, is right and perfect. All that we are, no matter how good we think our ideas are, most of our ideas are going to be an accumulation of thoughts and ideas of many years in the earth. And it's going to be a little difficult to understand why He says obedience is so very important. Every time you obey, you gain favor with Him, because He loves a happy and obedient heart. But, we don't obey to gain that favor; we obey because we love Him. And that's the primary thing He's looking for. Why are we obeying? Is it because we want something? Or is it because we love Him?

I can remember many, many years ago, He spoke to me. In fact, this is one of my books. He spoke to me saying, “When there are not enough words to express your love, obedience, says it all.” I've thought about that, contemplated on, meditated on that for years, trying to find areas of my soul that were given to my own standard of obedience. Now, if He's asking you to let go of things, specific things, you may find that when the time is right and you've learned what He needed you to learn that He will begin to restore some of those things. I never look for it; He'll just put it in your heart to know. But by the time He does, it's not going to have the importance in it that it had before He took it.

So everything, say this say this in your heart: “Everything that enters into my life is ultimately a path for the knowledge of walking with God." It's a path of lessons to gain the ability to walk with God. Some of us really need circumstances to have a reason and I'm one of those people. If I go through travesty, tragedy, heart pain, emotional pain, physical pain, spiritual pain, I look for the reason that it was allowed. And I'm not saying so much the door that was opened to allow that, because I've also learned that God is bigger than our doors. And if there's a door we need to close, if we're seeking His wisdom, He'll tell us. But usually, it has to do with character changes, changes we never knew before. That to have good character we must walk in these particular things. And He uses these circumstances to help make us, even to break us if He has to, to better make us. It is never, for the end, to be evil; it is always, for the end, to be good and to be prosperous. That's why we can call Him a good God. The book of Hebrews tells us that He disciplines like an earthly father but His discipline is to prepare us for His holiness. A much higher degree of success of blessings are on His disciplines because they go deeper into the heart, deeper into the soul, that He might bring us to a place of light and glory, where we can walk with the Son of God, like the Son of God walked with the Father.

To be continued next week…

In Him,
Nita