The Cross For Me...
Monday, April 21, 2008 at 1:56PM 
Greetings, Dear Friends!
Susie Larson here...
And to those visiting, I say welcome!
I post every Wednesday and my sole purpose is to nourish your soul along the way.
If you take the time to post on my blog in April, you may win a $10.00 gift card to Caribou, Target, OR Dairy Queen! Your choice. So drop me a note and say hi!
I'm writing this post on Monday because on Wednesday, I'll be flying home from a speaking event.
I just love mornings, and this morning was an extra special one for me. Today was the first time this season that it was warm enough for me to sit out on my deck and greet the morning.
With the breeze blowing in the trees, the birds singing a happy song, and the sun peeking through the clouds, I felt especially aware of God's incredible attention to detail. What a beautiful God He is!
For a brief moment, I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and prayed for our country. I've been concerned about the intense divisions among us as a nation. I'm troubled by the desire of many to see God wiped from our history. I'm concerned about many of the youth in our day. There's an absolute disregard for authority, purity, honor, humility, gratefulness, and so on and so on. Needless to say, I prayed and asked for mercy, for protection, and for a renewed fire in my belly that I might live for fully for Him.
As soon as I said, "Amen" I looked up and what I saw took my breath away. I captured it in the picture at the top of this blog. A perfect Cross was etched in the sky. I took out my phone and snapped a picture (click on the picture and it'll enlarge enough for you to see the Cross).
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is intimately acquainted with our ways, He is engaged in our journey, and He is high above every circumstance.
Within the hour the wind picked up and the clouds took on a different shape. Even so, I lingered a while with my thoughts.
That beautiful Cross for me, was a reminder of the brevity of life and the height of our calling.
This day, this time in which we live, calls for authentic faith, real passion, and a love that is less calculating and far more forgiving than we've ever known before.
The very thought of the Cross and the death Jesus died, forces me once again to ask myself, just how serious am I about following Him?
With all my heart I believe we are entering a day of acceleration. Things are going to happen faster. Things are happening faster.
Where once, it was unheard of for a young adolescent to shoot up his school, now, getting to that point seems a shorter road. Where once the idea that a wife would walk out on her family simply because she's bored, was something to make us gasp, is now a regular occurrence.
But it's not all bad news.
When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord raises up a standard against Him! Psalm 75:10 says, "For I will cut off the strength of the wicked and increase the power of the godly."
Those who are sowing seeds of faith, cutting from their lives that which is displeasing to God, and loving others because God loved first - those people - will walk in a Super-natural power that will bring some of God's Kingdom to earth.
Read this powerful passage from 2 Corinthians 6:16...
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
And here's another one from 1 John 3:21-23...
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him. And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He has commanded us.
The verse above is a big reason why I spend much of speaking prep time letting God deal with me.
I want to be so in step with Him that when it comes time to pray for the women to whom I'm about to speak, I can ask for the moon! The things I ask for are above and beyond anything my finite mind can comprehend. I ask God to deliver, heal, restore, renew, remind, strengthen, and save the women at my events.
When we're at home in the presence of God, when we give Him access to our character, and when we love the lost and the unlovely, it's easy to come boldly into His presence and ask for the things He wants to give us.
The Cross for me made all of this possible.
May we strip off every weight, every encumbrance, every lesser affection that we might make a God-sized impact in the world around us.
The times call for it!
Blessings to you this week~
Reader Comments (13)
Love in Christ,Loree
I couldn't see the lamb's face but I might be totally missing it. :)I saved this picture to my phone and I look at it every day.What a blessed morning that was...
Peace to you~
Amen and amen! He is the Most High God; high above our circumstances, every day and in every way.Be blessed~
He rewards those who earnestly seek after Him.
I love that. :)
How nice to hear from you!
It's a sobering time, no? But you are right, while we need to acknowledge the times in which we live, we must always finish that thought by looking up and declaring, "But God in the midst of us, is mighty to save..."Blessings, friend~