Wednesday, July 06, 2005

"Set your house in order" 7-6-05

Good morning, Lord Jesus. I ask for Your grace to spend these first moments alone with You. Help me seek nothing but Your face and hear nothing but Your voice. ... Lord, You are reminding me of a note I received yesterday about my devotional titled "Put things in order." Her pastor in southern Kentucky said You told him last fall to have his house in order by July 7th. "Every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses" (Matthew 18.16). If You were to move in power across our land, we be ready? If You were to send revival would we be prepared? If You were to return in glory, would You find faith on the earth? The last words of Your servant David are recorded in 2 Samuel 23. Before he died, he did his best to set his house in order. He said: "Is not my house like this with God? For He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure. Will He not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? But the godless are all like thorns that are thrown away; for they cannot be picked up with the hand; to touch them one uses an iron bar or the shaft of a spear. And they are entirely consumed in fire on the spot" (2 Samuel 23.5-7). You are "a consuming Fire" (Hebrews 12.29). In the day of Your coming, Your Holy Fire will come "burning like an oven" to consume all that is unholy and impure -- all that is wood, hay, and stubble (Malachi 4.1-7). Only that which has been purified and fashioned in Your refining fire will remain. By Your grace, let us hear and obey. For though Your Fire will come in glory on the Day of the Lord, Your Holy Fire is already being released upon the earth and in our hearts, as that day nears. Give us revelation to understand these days, wisdom to prepare, and diligence to set our house in order. The most important thing to set in order is to set in order our relationship with You. "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw -- the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder suffers loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Corinthians 3.11-15). The truth is, we don't really even know how to completely set things in order, other than to try our best to hear and obey, all by Your grace. We ask for that grace. We ask for You to make us ready, to be prepared to love and minister in the ways of Your will in these coming days that are making way for the Day of the Lord. We ask for You to guide our thoughts and actions, so that what we have built with our lives will be built by You. "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain" (Psalm 127.1). In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Be encouraged this day! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays Friends, I'll be leaving for the Aldersgate Conference in Kansas City today to teach on the Holy Spirit and recieve the ministry of the Holy Spirit from others. Please keep us in your prayers, and pray that I won't miss out on anything the Lord is doing at home while I'm gone. I pray the same for you! To subscribe/unsubscribe please send a note to me at Messiah Ministries -- "preparing the way of the Lord" -- MessiahMin@aol.com Our mailing address: 2800 Tates Creek Rd; Lexington, KY 40502. God bless you!