Colossians 3:12-13 ESV
Isaiah 66:1-2 ESV
James 4:10 ESV
2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV
Micah 6:8 ESV
When I was a child I witnessed people I knew who (among other traits) practiced humility.
People humbly treated each other with respect. In school we were told to respect other people and their personal belongings. I did not attend private school and those qualities were taught in public school in a large metropolitan school district.
Colossians 3:12-13 says, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
I was also taught that we need to think of others, be kind, and not to bear a grudge.
My dad was an Elder in church and he practiced the qualities of humility and respect that I learned in school. He also practiced compassion, kindness, and forgiveness in the home.
In addition to telling me about those qualities I saw him do them. Telling a child is important but doing it makes it ‘stick with you’.
The scripture in Colossians tells the people of the Way (followers of Jesus or Christians) how we should respond to others. In other words, we are told to model qualities of Jesus.
God also told us in scripture how we are to respond toward Father, Son, and Spirit.
We learn in Isaiah 66:1-2, “Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
God told us what kind of people we are called to BE.
When I was fourteen years old, Billy Graham came to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. I grew up in Raytown and a group of people took a bus to the stadium in September of 1967. I knew I was going to hear a sermon. I knew it was Billy Graham. I knew I was with people I knew from church.
I did not know that night would forever change my life.
The instant I walked into the stadium I was seized by a violent rushing wind. It felt like a hurricane in my heart and mind. It was so strong that I started weeping. I cried through the entire message. I do not remember one thing that Billie Graham said that night.
At the end of the message I HAD to go down front. I was crying and I told one of the counselors what I experienced. He told me it was good. He was actually happy about it. He explained what I had experienced was the Holy Spirit.
Somehow I rode the bus home. I didn’t tell anyone one the bus what had happened to me. Instead I told my dad when I got home.
He reacted exactly like the counselor reacted at the stadium, but my dad took it a step further. He told me whenever something happened I didn’t understand I could tell him about it and he would help me to understand it.
After that night I started having dreams and visions. I knew they were from God. About a week after my first dream, it came true. The dream was a warning of things to come. In the dream I was afraid but I knew someone would come. It didn’t happen exactly like I expected, but it did happen. Someone came to help me.
Since then I’ve had hundreds and hundred of dreams and visions from God. Somehow I know when they are from God. Each one has come true.
It’s interesting that in Isaiah 66:1-2 the prophet Isaiah writes that God spoke to him about God’s throne in heaven with God’s footstool on earth. Each time I have a message from God, I tremble and I am moved by the Spirit of God.
James, Pastor of the church in Jerusalem tells us in James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
Each time I have a dream or a vision I AM humbled. I am reminded it is not by my power but it is from the power of the living God.
In 2 Chronicles 7:14, we are told, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Each time God moves in my life or in someone else’s life I know God is connected to us, God does hear, and God does forgive us and our land (earth).
Whenever God moves any one of us, I am certain of what the prophet Micah wrote about in Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
God really desires a man/woman/person who has a humble heart.
God looks for a man/woman/person who trembles when he/she hear the Word of God.
In September 1967 I trembled for the first time when I walked into Arrowhead Stadium in September, 1967. God had me there. Even though I’ve faced many unexpected trials since, I know God has and will see me through the worst of times.
God has never failed me yet.
Today’s Spiritual Practice is: Listen and Wait
Ask God to fill you with the Spirit of God that will make you tremble.
In God, Deborah
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