The Garments we need to discard, the Tree we need to embrace, and the Why’s we don’t need to understand right now!

Sometimes writing a Heart Message from The LORD is like cleaning out a closet you haven’t purged in years.

What to keep, what to throw out, what to give away, what to save… just in case you need it.

It can be an all-afternoon project when you only went looking for one scarf, and you cleaned out a closet of years and said oh no, I didn’t know I‘d spend all day working on this.

But once you start, you just know you have to tackle it, and finish.

Like the race of life we are in, the last days Remnant Bride of Christ —– The LORD is calling all of us to a Spiritual Inventory — a cleaning out of the old closets in our thoughts and ways — to make way for the new. Time to get this job done right!

This is not an earth shattering revelation. It’s a simple Message — but I believe it is on God’s Heart.

To those who have been tested by Faith through some long hard weary battles, and now have a seasoned Faith, seasoned by virtue of utter dependency on God, Faith becomes more priceless in this season of life.

A seasoned Faith is not for the Faint of heart — it is the ultimate exchange price of obedience. It will cost you everything.

The best work you’ll ever do for God is in secret. The Prayers of your heart — the Prayers nobody hears — but God.

The tears nobody sees — but The LORD.

The sleepless nights of intercession nobody knows — but the Redeemer.

Kingdoms rise and falls. Countries rise, nations fall. Billions of lives spin on a ball circling the orbit.

The prayers of a child, the muffled cries of the abused and neglected, the mothers cries for their prodigals, nations crushed under governments of tyranny, these sounds — to God’s ears — have shaped destinies and civilization.

God values most what is unseen and unknown by anyone — but Him!

More than any other eloquent prayer recited at a podium, voiced among the masses, these cries of anguish have far more weight in heaven than polished utterances by kings and princes.

People are delivered and saved and set free from the things only God sees and hears.

It is better to get your reward in heaven from The LORD, than to have the praise of men here on earth!

Prayer, Petitions, Intercession and Travail — that has been tested and tried — baked in an oven of waiting and adversity — is not an easy-bake bread. It’s a slow-rising dough.

It will take longer than you want to wait, to inherit the promises.

Just ask Sarah and Abraham. Ask the Israelites who baked on hot sands toiling as slaves in Egypt.

Ask Paul, whose spiritual biography is so Herculean, no one could live through such repeated sufferings without supernatural Grace.

And the list goes on….. But this is not about them, this is about you — and me. Our journey!

The LORD is saying, your sufferings and your rewards are as gold to Him. Pure gold!

Your tears and your joys — and the joys to come — were specifically tailored with you in mind.

He knows your frame. He is a good God, and has a storehouse of joy waiting to give to you.

But patience must have her perfect work first.

God never puts the cart before the horse — and as He told me years ago, “I AM a God of Order, Purpose and Timing.”

Try as you might to change His work order for your life — you’ll only frustrate yourself.

It’s impossible for Him to be less than perfect — He can’t be!

His Glory is all Wisdom, Knowledge and Love — and He can’t and won’t be anything other than Who He is.

He is everything in thought, action, plans, dreams, purpose and destiny. He can’t help but be the Godhead — because He is “I AM.”

I believe, we who have been called and chosen to know Him in this Hour of Destiny, need to remember that as we serve at the pleasure of our LORD and Redeemer — King Jesus — we are not our own, we were bought with a price.

We were ransomed (paid-in-full with The Blood) to get our souls out of hell, to sit at the table of the King — one day — in His kingdom.

What a thought! He made us kings and priests (Revelation 1:6). What a humble heart in such a powerful God to want to share His Kingdom!

If anyone of us were asked by the Angel at The Gate of Heaven, before entering “Let me see your spiritual biography please…your papers…your life resume….” What would it say of us?

Recently I saw an article about how people over fifty should jot down what they would want their obituary to say about themselves, as a way to evaluate where you’re at in life — like a ‘bucket list’ of things one wants to do — but haven’t yet.

For me, my only bucket list is, “Did I obey God and do what He asked?”

Years ago, it was not so. God had to keep putting me on His Potter’s Wheel until I was willing. to do it His way….

In my imperfect humanity — Did I love? Did I serve? Did I intercede? Did I repent? Did I forgive? Did I take the next step? Even when I failed?

That’s my bucket list.

Time on this earth is short. It’s racing quickly. We are in the end times of the end times.

The superfluous will have no weight in eternity. Do what matters. Your life matters to God — more than you know!

When Paul said, “I have finished my race, I have fought the good fight. And now the crown of life is waiting for me,” (2 Timothy 4:7-8 ) he did his earth-life obituary — perfectly. But his real life lay just ahead.

He was hungry for it. Jesus, nailed to a Cross, in His last moments of tortuous agonies cried out, “It is finished!” (John 19:28-30).

Jesus did what mattered — He came to redeem all of humanity!

• What do we have yet to do, that we haven’t done yet for The Kingdom — that still burns in our soul?
• We must do a serious evaluation and assessment of our Spiritual Journey.
• What caused me to fail in past seasons?
• What graces were there that helped me to overcome and move ahead?
• What were the setbacks and alternatively, what/ who helped me progress and grow in my Faith?

Like a favorite coat that you have a sentimental attachment to that no longer fits, we need to discard past places, relationships long over, past ideologies, past wounds, past hurts, in that great big beautiful called the Sea of Forgiveness Yesterday.

Let the waters of that body of water — flow downstream.

You are now swimming in the river Jordan (the Yardenit), the life giving water that flows from the mountain of God.

It is time to discard the heavy, ill-fitting, out of season coats of our past trips around the mountain of disappointment and sighs.

We need an all-weather all season Coat to take us through all the vicissitudes of our Journey, in the more mature-season of our Faith Walk (2 Timothy 4:2).

Yesterday’s Garments don’t fit right anymore! They don’t become us anymore!

We need better Garments. (Isaiah 61:3) We need His Faith, His Words, His Love, His Hope.

We need Perseverance to finish our race well. No shortcuts!

I imagine that most who would read this post, like myself, have journals galore — perhaps hundreds of Words which The LORD has said to you over a period of many years.

Some Promises and Prophecies, have matured to their fullness of time, and have come to pass.

Some words are still baking in the furnace of testing, and as the enemy taunts our thoughts and emotions that “this Word (bread) will never rise…” — we have to rebuke his lies!

We cannot live eating from the knowledge of the tree of good and evil.

We will only finish our race well if we eat from the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22, Proverbs 3:18)

Jesus is The true Tree of The Life of the Godhead. Father God poured His Zoe life — His everything into Jesus — and Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to show us the way.

The tree Jesus was hung on, became The Tree of Life for every one who receives Him!

All God’s Words have His life in them!

God directs the timing, fulfillment of and delivery of those Words. That can be painful for our humanity — we don’t like to wait!

Though it seems some Words have wilted — or died before their delivery — God watches over His Words to perform them (Jeremiah 1:12).

A woman is pregnant nine months and gives birth. That’s the natural birth.

But a Spiritual Word can stay within the womb a lot longer. Ask Noah. Ask the prophets!

I’ve carried Words — personal Prophetic Promises, Words for my Nation, Words for Israel, Words for others — for decades!. Ouch.

Please deliver this manchild already LORD! (Revelation 12:5)

I’m sure you can relate to this!

Sometimes you just want to give up and cry — and say, “When God?” — when something inside of you just won’t let you let go.

God’s Words, His Voice, reverberates and echoes within us.

I’ve discovered whatever God speaks, stays in your spirit. You can’t erase it.

You may not like how or when it’s going come to pass. You may not like the timing, but when you know that you know that you’ve heard from God, you can’t un-know it!

It’s like once you’ve had a Vision, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. Your memory bank will always remember what you saw.

And when The Word hits your spirit, you can’t un-know it. At least, I cant!

For us, His Remnant Bride, His Words are more real than our own.

His voice has more weight than ours. It stays inside our kishkeh. (Yiddish word for guts).

I can’t erase God’s Voice. His Voice has become our life. No wonder King David penned Psalm 51.

Losing a beloved infant son couldn’t compare to losing God’s Presence. He is our life. There is nothing else — no other reason — to even exist.

Knowing every event in time (which He created), all the good and bad of life, His Glory-genius strategizes every event and detail — to orchestrate a beautiful ending.

Our spiritual biography can be glorious, if we allow Him to do His perfect Work of Grace and don’t interfere with His Ways!

Trillions of cells within our body were programmed to work interdependently with every system in our body.

Our spirit, body-mind-will-and-emotions — our soul, is unique.

Every day over 235 million stars show up in the heavens. Who created them? Where are they going?

Since God spoke Time into existence, astronomers are discovering there are trillions and trillions of stars in a Galaxy that is still expanding.

When God said “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” (Genesis 1:3), apparently, He didn’t turn off the switch.

The one God in three Persons (Genesis 1:3) — that was His signature to “get the ball rolling!”

Do you think God can’t look at our life and create and re-create any situation for good?

His Purposes and Plans, despite anything the enemy throws at us, can be weaved and tailor made into a beautiful story of redemption — unique — like no story told before or after. (God is not a fan of leftovers — He likes fresh Manna everyday for His children!)

When, a few months back, The LORD said to me, “I’m letting you know there is an onslaught from the adversary coming” — I thought, “Oh no. I don’t need this now!”

I thought, “Can’t You just take care of it, so this doesn’t have to happen LORD?”

No one wants to hear, “Buckle up Pilgrim, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!”

I gave The LORD some easy alternatives, so I wouldn’t have to suffer. Yes, we are both chuckling about this now.

Since when does The LORD need or take our advice? More than once, He has let me know His ways are higher than mine (Isaiah 55:9).

Of course, He is patient with us, reminding us that when we pass through the murky waters — we will not drown — not be overtaken. (Isaiah 43:2)

No one I know would turn down a supernatural quick healing or an answer to prayer — yet our Creator has His Own Ways, and His Own Time!

In earnest, haven’t we all prayed for those we love, who are suffering, and we had hoped they would get an instant answer.

For ourselves, to God’s Glory and Mercy, some, even us, got answers right then.

Some didn’t. Their answer came progressively. In His time — and Scripture speaks of those who died in Faith, not having yet obtained “The Promise”. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Also, some promised answers were “progressive….” Some are still waiting years for their miracle, in His Time — not ours!

Only God knows the whys and whens behind every Prayer we pray.

I have a friend who teaches Devotions and Bible studies, and she shared she was starting to fret that it was many years of waiting and interceding, and God hadn’t yet answered her prayers for her children.

She asked me, in effect, “Why is God taking so long?”

I replied, remember that story of Moses, remember that story of Sarah waiting, many decades for a child, only to be told at 90 and 100 — time to shop for desert-diapers you two — next year at this time… a son!

Remember Esther and Mordecai when they needed deliverance? Remember, this prophet — a hero of Faith — the Bible tells the story of those who had to wait in patience and wait in Faith.

She got it. So did I. We — are not God!

The Truth is this: we all want to teach the Bible stories and enjoy the beauty of them and make devotionals out of them.

But God forbid that The LORD would require any of us to suffer in the wait of them.

We want the Resurrection Miracle without The Cross of waiting — of enduring — of our Faith being tested.

The greater the purpose in the answer when it comes, will be the suffering we must endure to obtain the prize.

None of us want to have to live through what they lived through to get what they got. But there’s no shortcuts in the purposes of God. He is sovereign!

You see, we aren’t calling the shots down here!

Heaven is filled with the Redeemed Souls — all bit-players of all generations.

Shakespeare knew that well, “all the world’s a stage” and The Master Director/ Producer is none other than Father God!

We are His Workmanship.

God gets to decide the role we play in His Kingdom — not us.

Once we truly learn to accept that — life gets easier.

One day, The Curtain will come down, the play will be over, and The Master will call us all home.

One day, there will be no more roles to walk out in time; no more dialogue to learn; no more trying to figure out if our life is a comedy, a drama, or a sitcom. We will just — be!

We will be One with Him.

We will be in such an ecstatic eternal weight of Love and Shalom, that this time on earth will be as a distant memory.

As Apostle Paul said, he was looking forward to the glory ahead of Him, (Hebrews 12:2 ). That’s how he could endure the testing.

All of our journeys will look different — but the endgame is faithfulness.

I’ve not suffered like the massacred Christians or the persecuted martyrs in other Nations.

Their sacrifice and test will result in a weight of Gold Glory only heroes know.

I can learn from those who’ve endured.

None of us know what tomorrow may bring, yet we can be certain of this one thing.

We want the last words written about us to declare we were faithful to the end.

We want to hear “Well done, thy good and faithful servant” from King Jesus Himself.

That’s the reward that never shall end. (Matthew 25:21)

 

~ Elizabeth Cassutto

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Rev. Elizabeth Cassutto
Lightbeacon Ministries, Millsboro, Delaware.

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