as I am reading Joshua again, just enticed by this story of courage and faith,
I am stuck.
 or struck.
Joshua 2:9-10,12
“I know the Eternal has given your people this land.”

how did she know?
how did this unsaved (?) prostitute know?
do you know?

know,  is a verb meaning; to know, to learn, to perceive, to discern, to experience, to confess, to consider, to know relationally and to know how, to know experientially

Rahab knew experientially and relationally, perceived, discerned, confessed and experienced  God  and that God had given them this land. She knew, she perceived.

“we have heard how the eternal held back the Red Sea so you could escape from Egypt on dry land and how you completely destroyed the Amorite kings. because I know all the things…”

how did she hear?
how did she hear and believe ?
how did they hear?

word of mouth travels fast !

Romans 10 tells us that some will hear the good news and refuse to submit to the truth they hear. so faith proceeds from hearing, hearing the word of God. how can they believe in Him when they have not heard? how can the hear if no one is proclaiming Him?

Rahab heard. and believed.
God heal our hearing
heal our hearing and believing

the word heard means: to hear intelligently with obedience implied, attentively, to hear, to obey, to respond to , the connotation of obedience in certain texts.

so Rahab heard intelligently with obedience, attentively responding to what she heard.

so Rahab KNEW by  hearing, experientially and relationally, perceived, discerned, confessed and experienced  God  and that God had given them this land.

she experienced what she heard. and believed what she heard. and obeyed what she heard.
she knew.

kinda makes you think a little doesn’t it.

what are we saying about God for others to hear?

are my words that are being heard, causing people to know? to believe?

Rahab heard the testimony and believed.
“as soon as news reached us, our hearts melted like way and non of us had an ounce of courage left. Your God is truly God” 

She experienced the testimony. she heard it and experienced and let her heart believe without seeing

How far we have come that we hear and want proof and then maybe we will believe

is this why we do not experience the manifest presence of God?
is this way relationally we are far from you?
is this why we can’t see the ‘cord’ of freedom from our walls ?
we have heard, but don’t really believe. our hearts have not melted like wax just by the spoken word from you, of you.
Rahab knew.
I want to knew.
I want to know.
do you?

I have been challenged. by God, Holy Spirit.
last night I couldn’t sleep at all…songs that I have written kept singing in my head.
over and over.
each melody, each and EVERY chord.
it was a concert in my head.
I have been challenged. psalm 149. “write new songs; sing them to Him with all your might!”
I have been given/written over 100 songs, some we sing at church, others are private, but here is my challenge.
why am I not sharing them ?
insecurity?
doubt?
well those are lies, but somehow creep in there.
then it hit me.
like a sustained chord on the keys.
each new song is a new revelation
each melody is a new mercy
every enchanted chorus I hear in my head is a revelation of God’s word, a new song.
If God is new every morning, then so should be my song.
“let his faithful followers erupt in praise, singing triumphantly wherever they are, even as they lie down for sleep in the evening !”
I just experienced this verse.
my sleep was erupting in praise with new songs
what new songs are stirring in you?
what new revelations of His mercy are in your heart?
it’s time for the singing to begin
I have been challenged by God, Holy Spirit.
“Write new songs; sing them to Him with all your might”
I have been challenged.

ps. the bible I am using currently is THE VOICE Bible. I love it !

I am thankful to God for the freedom that comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 7:25

Today, as we reflect on our freedom, most of us think of our politic freedom. And I am so very grateful for all branches of military and those who served to bring us this freedom. May God bless all of you, past, present and future.

But, how many of us think on a daily basis of the freedom we have in Jesus? Or maybe you really don’t feel very free spiritually?

When I think of the ultimate price that Jesus, as a man, paid for us, today to live free, it brings me to my knees. Every drop of His blood was for freedom. Every piece of flesh that was ripped off of him, was for my freedom to love and be loved by Him. Every nail that was pounded into his body onto a the cross, was for me, so that I would never have to take that pounding, but could freely come to the cross and die. die to my shame. my sin. my past. my guilt. my freedom. yes. even my freedom isn’t free if I do not know how I received it.

so today, are you free. truly free.

it was for freedom that Christ has set you free.

live loved and live free.

blessed be my rock, the Lord, let him be praised. he trains my hands for battle and my fingers for warfare.

what does that even mean? or what does that look like?
He trains my hands for battle. my fingers for war ?

the word train or teach means: to be taught, to be learned, diligent, expert, skillful

so He teaches, diligently teaches me, expertly teaches

the word fingers or hands: from the root word yawd – meaning the open one, indicating power, means and direction !

He diligently, expertly, skillfully teaches my hands…
He trains my fingers to be open in power and direction…

I want to challenge your thinking from the natural to the spiritual for today.

we read these verses and immediately think of a brawl, or a street fight? but I think this fight is way deeper than that.

David was a man of war, but also a man of prayer.

so could this be a training in prayer ? in spiritual warfare?

duet. 3:2 I’m going to defeat him and his whole army for you, 3:22 I your God will do the fighting for you, 11:22 He will drive out all the nations for you.

do you see the pattern? God has the battle and the victory (proverbs 21:31)He promises that the battle belongs to the Lord

all through the psalms we see how prayer/worship was the weapon. (psal 7, 149, 91)

in Zecheriah 14:1 and Jeremiah 20:11 we are told God will do the battle

Even Romans 8:31 tells me that if God is for me who can be against me

so what then is the training of my hands for  battle and my fingers for war?

is it that place of the secret place where my hands are lifted in total surrender to Jesus the warrior king,

is this the place where my fingers learn to interlock in prayer ? to dance in worship?

are my hands and fingers being trained in a posture of prayer and worship?

He trains my hands to be surrendered in prayer and my fingers to worship…

isn’t prayer where the battle is ?

so for my hands to be trained in battle, could it be possible that it is a position of prayer?

let the training begin.

shipwrecked. beaten. prosperous. what do these 3 words have in common? This is who Paul describes his life, or one of his journeys. Just to get to Rome, which he considered a prosperous journey, he was in chains, beaten, and shipwrecked, yet considered this prosperous?
do we consider our lives prosperous ?
 do we understand the word as it tells us; Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
what does that look like? to have your soul prosper? can my soul be rich? is it all about what we are looking at and what we consider prosperous?
what would you think if I told you, you are part of your life being prosperous?
Psalm 141 tells me to ‘let my gaze be fixed upon you’. What does that look like to fix my gaze on Jesus, to look contently at him, to focus on His face, to meditate on Him. Is this the key to being prosperous?
by keeping my focus on him. if blessings come from obedience and obedience comes from hearing his voice, don’t I have to gaze at him to hear?
if prosperity is a blessings as written in Duet. 28 and the command was to obey the voice, wouldn’t it be easy to hear if I was fixing my gaze on him?
wow – revelation !! can’t you always hear someone better if you are face to face?
“But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ “
(jer. 7:23)
let’s dig in. for it to be well with me, I am to obey the voice of God, and walk in that obedience.
this blessing of prosperity comes from hearing and obeying.
 Isn’t this the example that Paul is giving us? hearing. obeying. prosperity. notice it doesn’t say comfortable and lots of stuff. maybe prosperity is a state of being rather than a level to reach?
so today I am shipwrecked. beaten. but prosperous.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the keeper of the vine. Abide in me and I will abide in you. I am the vine and you are the branch. Without me you will accomplish nothing.
I think sometimes we forget that we are the branch. Jesus is the vine that connects us to the Father, the keeper of the vine.
We race all around doing things doing things, busy things that aren’t connected to the vine. A branch cannot bear fruit if it is disconnected from the vine. Even our redemption, our reconciliation, our salvation comes from being the branch, connected to the vine, held together by the keeper of the vine.
If you abide in me, and my voice (the hearing and obeying of the word) abides in you, THEN anything you ask will come to pass. If you abide in me THEN you will bear much fruit. HOWEVER the Father cuts away those who do not bear fruit. The word for hear is the Hebrew word “shema”, which means hearing AND obeying. So you can literally replace the word listen, or hear with obey.
This brings a new question. Am I bearing good fruit? Is my fruit bringing glory to the Father or to myself? Is that how you tell good fruit, it all points to the Father and not myself. I see a lot of self fruit out there.
How do we know we are abiding?
Abide in my love. Follow my example in obeying the Father’s command and receive His love. If you obey and you will stay in my love. Does that mean the opposite is also true? If I do not obey Him, am I not loving Him? ouch ! Jesus then says; I want you to know the delight I experience, to find ultimate satisfaction, which Is why I am telling you all of this. Jesus is telling us this so that we can know like he did what it looks like to have ultimate delight and satisfaction in this life as we live as a branch connected to the vine. Is this the same delight that he says, I will give you the delights of your heart. And that delight is really to be connected to him.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is like a branch that is tossed out and shrivels up and is later tossed into the fire to burn. Do you feel like you are shriveled? do you feel like you are being tossed aside? are you abiding? are you a branch ? or trying to be the vine?
I want to be a branch.