When the angel of the Lord appeared to me in 1990, He said, “Tell my people to come out of Babylon! Come out!” Church, listen—listen to the call of the Spirit! Listen to the cry of his heart! It is time to arise and to awaken and to come out of this death that you have been walking in! Do you not get tired of getting stomped on by the devil? Do you not ever get tired of walking around in the defilement of the world and seeing and knowing so little of God because of it? Do you not ever wish you could open the Bible and have it speak to you of the profound and bottomless things of God? Do you? Raise your hand if you do.
You will never find it in the world. You cannot find it there. Only in the solitary place of your prayer closet, only in the solitary place of the Word are you going to find the deep, hidden secrets and bottomless, (I love that word!) bottomless things of God. It is never-ending, ever-searching, going deeper, wider, broader, higher! There is no end to the revelations in God. But if you love the world you will never know that. He says, “Set me as a seal upon your heart my beloved. Set Me as a seal to guard your heart, to watch over your heart. Let your heart see none but Me.”
I can remember many years ago, back in the early to mid-80’s, I was deep in prayer when suddenly I felt a sword pierce my heart and felt nails driven through my hands and my feet. The pain was excruciating and I said to Him, ”What are you doing to me?” He said, “I am taking possession of you.” He wants to be the seal upon your heart. The seal upon your arm.
In western culture, when a woman and a man marry, they exchange rings. So, as you are going about your day in business or in family or shopping or whatever you do, you are ever-conscious of the one that you belong to. You see that ring all the time. Those hands are not going to touch what they should not touch—it would hurt your beloved. You are not going to take that ring where you should not take it or it would break your beloved’s heart. In some cultures, it is the putting on of a necklace so that the seal is warmed close to the heart.
God is saying, “I want to be right there before the eyes of your heart and right there before your natural eyes so that all you see is Me. Then you will never touch what will hurt or offend Me and you will never take this temple to a place that will break My heart.”
The Church has difficulty in trusting God, not because He does not prove His love to us every day, the validity and the power of His love, the greatness and the graciousness of His love. We don’t trust Him because our own love is so impure and selfish. We think His love is selfish like ours. We judge Him through our own impurity and we do it because we do not know Him, because there is a lack of prayer. Prayer is not a burden to the remnant Bride, to the Beloved. Prayer is a joy because it is moments with Him. Time in the Word is not something that you put aside and save until the last moment. The Bride relishes every moment that is spent in the arms of the Beloved and she hates the distractions that would pull her away. If you do not walk with Him like that, you do not know Him. If you do not walk with Him like that, you are sadly, sadly lacking in the very purpose of your call.
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.” Do you hunger and thirst for Him? Do you hunger with an insatiable hunger, a hunger that will not be denied? A hunger that compels and drives you on, ever greater and further and deeper, wanting more and more of Him? If you do not, why not? How can you live as a Christian and not live with that hunger? Who and what has beguiled your foolish soul to thirst for less? He pours drink upon the thirsty ground. The ground that is saturated needs no drink. He who is not sick needs no physician and until you come to a place of thirsting after Him, you are not going to have Him the way He wants to give Himself to you. And although you will know Him as Savior, you will never know Him as the Beloved, or as Lord.
The call is so precious. The call into the inner sanctums of God is the most precious thing that He has ever put upon the human soul. It is to be cherished like you would cherish a newborn baby. It is to be the most precious thing in your life, to be coddled and nurtured, protected at all costs. What mother, in seeing her little three-year-old on a train track with an approaching train, would not risk her very life to save that child? What father, in seeing his young son drowning in a lake would not risk his own life to save his son? The call into the inner sanctums of God is more precious than our children. It is more precious than ourselves. It is the most precious thing that God has ever laid upon the human heart and it is to be protected at all costs. It is to be nurtured. It is to be constantly engaged in. Love is as strong as death. Jealousy is as hard and cruel as Sheol. This is the jealousy of God.
The Bible says that God yearns over us with a great jealousy. He yearns to possess us with a great jealousy. His Spirit is ever falling over us in waves, jealously calling us into to position, like the waves of an ocean washing over the shore and drawing the sands back into the sea with it. God’s jealousy flows over our hearts, drawing us into Himself and by rights, claiming every part that we will give Him, uprooting every sin we will yield, removing every enemy of our souls.
His jealousy burns like a flame of fire deep inside the soul, like fire consuming a log in a fireplace. His jealousy consumes from the inside out, purging, purifying the place of His dwelling, claiming, drawing into itself the soul of His beloved. As the fire burns, it grows greater, larger, until it consumes and your soul has become so purified. Do you understand the things that I am saying to you? Do you understand? Your soul becomes so purified that when we see Him, we see the beauty and the purity of His blazing, radiant glory. You lay prostrated at His feet, or you sit silently in awe of His majesty and His grandeur, not once or twice or three times, but every day. Your soul has become so pure, your eyes have become so pure that they daily look into the things of His world and you stand before Him face to face every moment.
His jealousy becomes your enemy’s worst enemy. When you are wounded, His jealousy rises up so quickly that you find yourself pulling into your faith and saying, “Forgive them Lord, forgive them! Do not touch them! Do not discipline them, not on my account! Release them!” and you are carried deeply into Him. He is jealous for your soul but if you will not let His jealousy consume you, you will never know the protection of the secret place. Be consumed with Him, in flashes of fire, a most intimate flame, the very flame of the Lord. I love His flame that ever burns in my soul. I love His flame that is, moment by moment, purging, purifying His temple that He might dwell at peace in this place. Our God is a consuming fire. I do not want to be a flicker for Him. I want to be a blazing tree—a blazing tree, burning inside and out with the love of God, loving Him ever more, loving His people ever more, loving the sinner ever more. Blazing for Him!
To be continued next week…
In Him,
Nita Johnson
