Close Encounters of the God Kind

Sunday was an amazing day in the House of the LORD.  Never have I experienced a move of the Holy Spirit as I did on Sunday.  It was indescribable.  It was incredible.  It was AWESOME!!  Something changed in me that day.  The connection between my head and my heart was finally established.

For years I have had head knowledge.  Not just of who God is, but of the Word of God.  From the time I was a child, I have learned Scripture.  I have an innate ability to learn.  Not just of the Bible, but everything.  I thirst for knowledge.  I love to read and to learn about everything.  But, for some reason, being able to put that Biblical knowledge into practice has been just  out of my reach.  I believe that experiences from my childhood prevented me from truly believing that the promises in God's Word were for me.  I had no problem believing in healing and restoration for others.  I knew that God could and did reach down and touch people.  I just never believed it was for me.

Being emotionally and mentally abused as a child and teen, I believed myself unloveable.  Unworthy.  Why would God take time with me when there were so many others who needed Him?  Sunday morning, God made me realize that I worthy.  That every promise spoken in His Word is for me.  God took time to come personally to me and let me know that He loves me.  Never before had I felt such emotion.  From the minute the hands were laid on me, the heat of the Holy Spirit overwhelmed me.  As the tears began to flow, the dam broke.  The wall between my head and my heart crumbled.   Using a simple man, one who was willing to be a vessel, God was able to reach out to me and make me understand that He LOVES me.  What an amazing concept.

I am not what has been spoken over me for years.  I am worthy, useful, compassionate, valued, my life has meaning.  I do not have to stay in the place of lack.  I can rise above my past and the curses spoken against me.  Thank You Lord.  God called me a warrior.  Yes, I am a warrior.  I am more than capable of standing up for God.   God called me beautiful.  Yes, I am beautiful.  My emotions have nothing to do with fact. 

Before I was spoken over, I was sitting in the pew praying for God to make me as nice looking on the inside as I was on the outside Sunday morning.  I had a new outfit and a new hairdo and felt pretty.  I didn't feel so pretty on the inside.  I have allowed my past to have too much influence over my present.  I have done things that have hurt me as well as my family.  I had learned to put up a great facade.   So, as I sat there praying, God touched me.  He made my inside as pretty as my outside.  I AM a new creature.  The old things have passed away and all things have become new.  I feel different.  I have prayed lots of times for change, but something different happened this time.  I am more compasssionate, more caring, calmer.  I still have some things that God and I have to work on together, but I know now that He cares and He will continue the good work that He has started in me until the day of Christ.

I was reading about the sinful woman in Luke tonight.  With new eyes I realized things that I had missed before.  This woman, who chose to live in sin, came to realization that she was a sinner.  Being a prostitute was probably one of the worst things you could have done in that time.  Everyone looked down on her and treated her like a pariah.  She, I'm sure, worked hard for everything that she had.  One of the things that struck me was that without men who used her, she wouldn't have had a job.  That's right.  The same men who talked about her and treated her so horribly in the daytime where the same men who came  to visit her at night.  That's right.  These two faced men keep her in her profession.  The second thing that I realized was that the alabaster box full of perfume was what she used to entice the men.  It smelled good.  It made her smell good.  She spent her hard earned money, and probably alot of it, to buy this box of perfume to aid her in her job.  Her hair would have been an aid also.  Keeping her hair beautiful would have been an asset to her.  The third thing I realized was the she felt unworthy, unloved and lower than trailer park trash.  She wouldn't even look upon Jesus' face.  She stayed bowed down at His feet like a dog. 

This woman took the two things most valueable to her and used them to honor Jesus.  She poured out her expensive perfume upon His feet.  She didn't feel worthy enough to anoint His head.  She used her hair, her crowning glory, to wipe the tears from His feet.  The two things most important to her profession she didn't think twice of using to honor the Lord.  She realized her need for a Savior and knew that Jesus was that Savior.  She never had to speak a word outloud.  Jesus looked into her heart.  Everything He needed to know was right there in her heart.  She repented on the floor at Jesus' feet.

Today, unfortunately, many people don't realize their need for a Savior.  They don't want to use their prized possessions to honor the Lord.  They are content to live their lives to please themselves.  The more stuff they can attain, the happier they think they are.  How mistaken they are.  They need a Close Encounter of the God Kind.

What do you have that you prize above all?  Are you willing to pour it out at Jesus' feet in honor?  Are you willing to be transparent before God?  I was like that Sinner Woman.  Not a prostitue, but a sinner.  I put myself above everything.  I have done things because of this that have some repricussions that I now have to deal with.  I put what I wanted above what God wants for me.   I have hurt others and burned bridges that should never have been burned.  I have made myself untrustworthy because of my actions.  But, by the Grace of God, I am being restored.  I am being remade.  I am more!!

Are you willing to lay your most prized possessions down?