Psalm 81: 1-3 For the Pure and Shining One~ Asaph’s poetic song, set to the melody of “For the Feast of Harvest” ~ Lord, just singing about you makes me strong! So I’ll keep shouting for joy to Jacob’s God, my champion. Let the celebration begin! I will sing with drum accompaniment and with the sweet sound of the harp and guitar strumming. Go ahead! Blow the jubilee trumpet to begin the feast! Blow it before every joyous celebration and festival.
Reflect ~ Change It UP
The heart of the gospel is the celebration of change. Jesus came to us and ushered in transformation; the greatest change of destiny mankind would ever know. Jesus changed up our lives in that death to life way only He could. Jesus, our Life-Giver we celebrate You, we stand in awe of You. In our today, a decade is turning, we are leaving behind ten years and stepping into 2020 in a few days. There is much change ahead, yet the common denominator for all of us, our Father God, our Savior Jesus, our Holy Spirit, changes not. Awe-GOD! His heart remains steady and true to and for each of us, in that way only He can be on mission for us. The heart of the gospel is change, but the One with the truest heart towards us, and for us, is Our God. Our Father God, our Triune God, He writes the story of our lives, a tale which is characterized by constant flux, as every day in followship of Him, is a new day with a new God Adventure with incredible God purposes in play in our lives. This personal journey with Jesus, is a relationship story, never out of His light and never out from underneath the authority of His Amazing Sovereignity, His rule of Infinite Love. As I step out of a decade into a new year, I intentionally choose Jesus, and in followship of Him, I choose JOY! Jesus 1st and then others and then you, this is the way of being intentionally kingdom cultured. JOY!
Psalm 81:4-8 For God has given us these seasons of joy, days that the God of Jacob decreed for us to celebrate and rejoice. He has given these feasts to remind us of his triumph over Egypt, when he went out to wage war against them. I heard the message in an unknown tongue as he said to me, “I have removed your backbreaking burdens and have freed your hands from the hard labor and toil. You called out to me in your time of trouble and I rescued you. I came down from the realm of the secret place of thunder, where mysteries hide. I came down to save you. I tested your hearts at the place where there was no water to drink, the place of your bitter argument with me.” Pause in his presence. TPT
Heavenly Hindsight ~ Reflect
I am taking some intentional time away to reflect on the past few years and to open my heart wide to God for this next decade. God will be doing something new, no doubt about it. The newness will be different and unique for me and for you, but the Common Denominator of our change, He remains for all of us the same, Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Healer, Guider, Teacher and Prince of our Peace, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. God is going to do something new in my every day. Will I know it? Will I hand over the pen of my life story to the Lord of my life and let be, be still and let Him write on the tablet of my heart? I hope and pray to live from the inside out in vital-vertical relationship with Him, the Author of my life story, my Father God. It is in the position of willessness, I surrender my life story to the Author of my life, my Creator, the One Who has shaped me from my mother’s womb. I know I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I stand in Awe of this truth as I look forward to being shaped this year with the intentionally kingdom cultured wisdom of the Holy Spirit of God. I reflect in hindsight and flip-flop my memories to Awe-God gratefulness and then I fully face God, open hearted and ready to move into this next decade with Him, in followship of Him.
Psalm 81: 11-15 But my people still wouldn’t listen; my princely people would not yield to me. So I lifted my grace from off of their lives and I surrendered them to the stubbornness of their hearts. For they were living according to their own selfish fantasies. O that my people would once and for all listen to me and walk faithfully in my footsteps, following my ways. Then and only then will I conquer your every foe and tell every one of them, ‘You must go!’ Those who hate my ways will cringe before me and their punishment will be eternal. TPT
First~ Listen Up
I will listen up to God, I will surrender to Him daily in this new year all the stubbornness of my human condition. I have a phrase the Holy Spirit has dropped into my spirit for 2020, a point of change, the lead of my story He will write. That phrase is: Intentionally Kingdom Cultured. I am excited about what God is going to change up in me in 2020, especially because I step into a new decade with Him. I am not sure what my life will look like in this life season, but I am sure of “The One God” Whom I will wholly-holy love and live for. I am sure as I step into a new decade that the Holy Spirit of God is willing and able to speak, guide and continue to write my life story in the way that will be good for me and bring His Kingdom great glory. I am sure I know the choices that will keep me in followship of Him, choices for a vital-vertical relationship with Him, choices to keep my heart undivided in loyalty and love for Him. I am His Bride, He is my Bridegroom. As I listen up to The Bridegroom’s Voice first, in this new year, I know He will remove the fake realities I have adopted from my worldly viewpoint and exchange them for the reality of His Kingdom truth. I know, without a doubt this will be a year of laying down my selfish fantasies and picking up the mantel of God’s Kingdom, intentionally listening up for His Kingdom perspective, and changing up my life by the navigation of His Holy Spirit, into the culture of His Kingdom. I am looking forward to falling in love with God and His Kingdom in 2020 and being culturized by the ways of The Kingdom of God, it’s truth and life.
Psalm 81:16 But I will feed you with my spiritual bread. You will feast and be satisfied with me, feeding on my revelation-truth like honey dripping from the cliffs of the high place.”
Intentionally Kingdom Cultured
This 2020 I will nourish my soul with the revelation of God’s Kingdom culture. I begin with reflection. Reflection is a good thing, letting go of the past with praise and thanksgiving. Heavenly hindsight always reflects the goodness of God. The health of my soul depends upon a reflection which is stepped out in a heart of thanksgiving. Awe-GOD gratefulness is my first step into this time of reflection. I know that everything I have experienced this year had God purpose in play in it and has shaped me in that “be best” kind of way for my today. I am thankful to God and in 2020, I will intentionally, day by day, reflect with Awe-God gratefulness and develop an intentional kingdom culture where my heart if full of praise, thanksgiving and awe of God. I will have a praise reflection, kingdom cultured in Awe of God. 365 days of Awe-GOD reflection will begin January 1st as I write my praise and thanksgiving to God this next year. Let there be a joyful reflection and in that joy, let there be a renewed strength of soul. This I pray.
“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.” “Bend your neck to my yoke.” The metaphor of a yoke is that it joins two animals to work as one. It is not simply work or toil that is the focus here, but union with Christ. Matthew 11:28-30 The Passion Translation
Awe-GOD Gratefulness
I end this 2019 year and begin this 2010 decade in Awe of God, with a heart full of gratefulness, praise and thanksgiving for all He has done in me. In personal reflection, I lay my life on the table of God’s heart and willessly, I let go of all things me. I take all my wants, desires and expectations, and I lay them at His feet. I bow my life before God, willessly in love with Him, wholly-holy surrendered to His Kingdom. Simply-Significantly, I give God total access to my heart, pledging to Him to keep my life free of religiosity, to make it personal, my relationship with Him. I place my YES on the table with Him for 2020 from here to there unto forever. My heart is open wide to You, Holy Spirit as this new year I become Intentionally Kingdom Cultured by the navigation of Your Holy Spirit. Jesus, You are a servant warrior with a tender heart, make me one too. Make my life wholly-holy all about You, all for You and all in with You, Jesus, I pray. Amen. Father God, You are doing something new; I will experience it as I stay in followship of Your Holy Spirit, each day of 2020. Awe-GOD.
Thank you for stopping into The Bridegroom’s Café at the Author Table. Happy New Year! Post Script: Take your journal out. Reflect! If you want to follow along my personal journey in 2020, learning to be “Intentionally Kingdom Cultured” , make sure you subscribe to my blog, here by adding your email address. Today: Think on Psalm 81 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2081&version=TPT God bless you much as you leave behind this decade with a reflection of awe-god gratefulness and step into the new God has for you in 2020. Happy New Year to you and yours! KimberlyMac