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Spitfire
Member



Joined: 2004/8/3
Posts: 633


 Desperation

Hello Friends. I haven't been in here much since before the holidays. I downloaded Keith Daniel's sermon a few days ago called, Desperation,Revelation,and Resignation. It is one of the best sermons I've ever listened to on brokeness. He said, "brokeness is the first step to greatness." What is true brokeness? Isn't it the place a man comes to after having wrestled with God? Doesn't it leave you with a limp? Doesn't it leave you with a resignation to God that will cause us to never fight with him again? I must know him! I'm desperate! I've never been this desperate, even when I was in the throws of the worst trial of my life. If I can't really know him, I will die. I see that someone has posted a prayer request here concerning adultery and leaving her husband. Oh, Dear Friend, there is something much more urgent at stake here. You're salvation. You're eternal life! Don't settle for trying to obtain a life of ease here on this planet for, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet, lose his soul? I am divorced. I am an adulterer. Nothing has satisfied me except Jesus. And even yet, I'm not satisfied. I'm thirstier than ever to know him. Yesterday, my pain was so deep, I returned to my own vomit. Oh God, when will you come? My soul longs for thee!
I don't know what to say to you people. I need help. I need to know God in a way that will set me free from this torment. I know he is the only answer. I'm getting old. I can't encourage myself with the lie of this world any longer. I know too much. I'm in an awful place of pain. Please pray that I will get through this. I'm either gonna know God, or I'm gonna be dead. Your sister, Dian.

 2005/1/6 6:30Profile
Sandyjune
Member



Joined: 2005/1/5
Posts: 5
Phoenix Arizona

 Re: Desperation

Quote:
Psalm 120:1 In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me.

Oh sister, I know your pain and I tell you that Jesus cares for us. Get into the word of God. You need to fill your soul with the bible. I have come along way in life. I will be 44 years old on Jan. 24th. I have wasted many years chasing the things of this world. But God has heard my pain. I was with my husband for 20 years. I prayed and cried and travailed for his soul.He is a homosexual and was saved and delivered at one time. He fell away and now is lost in his sin. I left him because God knew I couldn,t handle the pain anymore. I have been delivered. But I still love him and pray for his soul. I asked Jesus to forgive me and I forgave my husband and released him into Jesus's hands.It is very hard now but I am free from the oppression and pain.I have my daughter and my grandson with me. I have lead her to Jesus and now my second daughter has prayed the sinners prayer in my living room last week. God is moving, I want my children to know Jesus. I have 5 children. 2 sons and 3 daughters. My other children live with my husband. But they come to mom's house for peace. They live with my husband by choice. But they know they are welcome here. I said all that to say this, get invovled in someone's else life and start praying for them. God will start showing you things and He will walk with you. I pray for all kinds of people and help where ever I can. Jesus then helps me to know Him better and walk closer to him. I will pray for you. Let me know how I can help you.I am your friend. Love in Christ, sandyjune
Quote:

Spitfire wrote:
Hello Friends. I haven't been in here much since before the holidays. I downloaded Keith Daniel's sermon a few days ago called, Desperation,Revelation,and Resignation. It is one of the best sermons I've ever listened to on brokeness. He said, "brokeness is the first step to greatness." What is true brokeness? Isn't it the place a man comes to after having wrestled with God? Doesn't it leave you with a limp? Doesn't it leave you with a resignation to God that will cause us to never fight with him again? I must know him! I'm desperate! I've never been this desperate, even when I was in the throws of the worst trial of my life. If I can't really know him, I will die. I see that someone has posted a prayer request here concerning adultery and leaving her husband. Oh, Dear Friend, there is something much more urgent at stake here. You're salvation. You're eternal life! Don't settle for trying to obtain a life of ease here on this planet for, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet, lose his soul? I am divorced. I am an adulterer. Nothing has satisfied me except Jesus. And even yet, I'm not satisfied. I'm thirstier than ever to know him. Yesterday, my pain was so deep, I returned to my own vomit. Oh God, when will you come? My soul longs for thee!
I don't know what to say to you people. I need help. I need to know God in a way that will set me free from this torment. I know he is the only answer. I'm getting old. I can't encourage myself with the lie of this world any longer. I know too much. I'm in an awful place of pain. Please pray that I will get through this. I'm either gonna know God, or I'm gonna be dead. Your sister, Dian.


_________________
Sandra Hubert

 2005/1/6 7:17Profile
Jimm
Member



Joined: 2004/4/27
Posts: 498
Harare, ZIMBABWE

 Re: Desperation

Dian

I want to offer some practical help to you Dian but I wonder if you could give me, your opinion on one lesson that I discovered after my life had changed. Reading this showed me what my journey entailed so, please do not assume that this is just empty doctrine. It is sound doctrine but the author(Watchman Nee) himself admits that the doctrine alone will not change you. You have one of the essential ingredients for progress…desperation! You must give this desperation to God and not to the Devil, who seeks to spiral you into hopelessness

CHAPTER ONE
THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAKING
Scripture Reading: John 12:24; Heb. 4:12-13; 1 Cor. 2:11-14; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rom. 1:9; 7:6; 8:4-8; Gal. 5:16, 22-23, 25
Sooner or later a servant of God discovers that he himself is the greatest frustration to his work. Sooner or later he finds that his outer man does not match his inner man. The inner man heads in one direction, while the outer man heads in another direction. He discovers that his outer man cannot be subject to the rule of the spirit and cannot walk according to God's highest demands. He discovers that the greatest hindrance to his work is his outer man and that this outer man frustrates him from exercising his spirit. Every servant of God should be able to exercise his spirit, to secure God's presence in his spirit, to know God's word through his spirit, to touch men's condition by his spirit, to convey God's word through his spirit, and to sense and receive divine revelation with his spirit. Yet the frustration of the outer man makes it impossible for him to use his spirit. Many servants of the Lord are fundamentally unfit for the Lord's work because they have never been dealt with by the Lord in a fundamental way. Without this dealing, they are basically unqualified for any work. All excitement, zeal, and earnest pleading is vain. This kind of fundamental dealing is the only way for us to become a useful vessel to the Lord.

THE OUTER MAN AND THE INNER MAN

Romans 7:22 says, "For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man." Our inner man delights in the law of God. Ephesians 3:16 also tells us "to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man." In 2 Corinthians 4:16 Paul also said, "Though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." The Bible divides our being into the outer man and the inner man. God resides in the inner man, and the man outside this God-occupied inner man is the outer man. In other words, our spirit is the inner man, while the person that others contact is the outer man. Our inner man puts on our outer man like a garment. God has placed Himself, His Spirit, His life, and His power in us, that is, in our inner man. Outside of our inner man is our mind, emotion, and will. Outside of all these is our body, our flesh.
In order for a man to work for God, his inner man must be released. The fundamental problem with many servants of God is that their inner man cannot break out of their outer man. In order for the inner man to be released, it must break out of the outer man. We have to be clear that the first obstacle to our work is ourselves, not other things. If our inner man is an imprisoned, confined man, our spirit is shrouded and not easily released. If we have never learned to break through our outer man with our spirit, we cannot work for the Lord. Nothing frustrates us like the outer man. Whether or not our work will be effective depends on whether the Lord has broken down our outer man and whether the inner man can be released through our broken, outer man. This is a very fundamental issue. The Lord has to dismantle our outer man in order to make way for our inner man. As soon as the inner man is released, many sinners will be blessed and many Christians will receive grace.

Dian, this is of course, just an introduction and the rest of it can be found here http://www.ministrybooks.org/books.asp?id=19&chapterid=0§ionid=1&pageid=1


_________________
James Gabriel Gondai Dziya

 2005/1/6 9:48Profile
crsschk
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re: Desperation

Dearest Dian,

You are such a cherished saint around here. You have given us all so much of your heart in honesty and integrity, sharing your thoughts and experience...O this just gripped me and caused a cry to escape for God to send the Comforter to your soul.

I know we share some commonality in trouble of financial duress, while that really takes a backseat to the real issue, that of which you speak here.

Sister, I don't have anything to offer than to weep with you and say, yes, I understand this as well to some extent. Nothing is so devastating to me than to feel that sense of God's presence, even if it's so subtle and...intangible as to defy explanation, 'leave'. What I mean is, more than feeling, some metal gymnastic trick of the mind to convince me otherwise... just that absence of His peace, not well being necessarily...how do you describe the undescribable?

A different approach on all this. Christmas this year was quite bizarre. New job, old job, much duress at home, wife is hurting and had checked out on Christmas, wanted nothing to do with it, angry, depressed, lashing out. I am exhausted mentally, physically and yet that 'peace that surpasses' undergirding, there is no other explanation. I don't think I quit singing 'O Holy Night until just a couple of days ago (interestingly every time I got in the truck it seemed to be on the radio, day after day) Was just making melody in my heart and caught up in the wonder of it all...just pure worship and wonder of [i] it is the night of our dear Saviors birth[/i]. How to describe these things? Not just emotions, no, way beyond that...Will not soon forget going out to do all the Christmas shopping the day before that glorious day of remembrance, had gone out the night before after work and had all of about three hours of sleep to work on. The sense of being carried along couldn't have been more pronounced if Jesus was carrying me around in His arms making a spectacle of us both. My wife called in the midst of my mall travelings, half apologizing, half venting anger...there was a friend, an elderly gentleman who was in the hospital for heart surgery, had just recently lost her grandfather...so much. But I just recall that I told her I loved her and that it was going to be O.K....and meant it, an understanding that was not of my own making.

Really don't put much stock in my own emotions or even half the nonsense that can be dirged up in this oft times twisted mind. Certainly beginning to tell when it's the enemy, when it's overt, usually it's more subtle and we have been warned that he is crafty for a reason. 'Casting down evil imaginations'... so far to go. A lot of stinking thinking is of our design, wretched proclivities...

But for all this wonder and awe and tremendous blessing of difficulty with peace...even with recent events and the horrors of devastation...children ripped from their mothers arms...now reports of child trading and other unspeakable crimes of evil bent...Have to draw a distinction away for a moment. The difficulty is in making comparisons often with what the Lord may be doing with us individually and the times and circumstances that are surrounding us. This of what you speak dear sister is felt in the soul if I could put it that way. I know I am as usual jumping about here...Trying to say that at some point in recent days the sense of the Lords Presence just left...Felt abandoned, left to my own...what? What will I do now? This cannot be, how can I do anything if You not be with me? I don't mean comfortable surroundings or lack of circumstantial difficulties...but no, not another 'dark night'... and yet I had to resolve that "I will never leave you nor forsake you'. I know that to be true even if it is not 'felt'. It is precarious in the last couple of days, that wavering trust, just a pressing onward and I think you hit on it right here:

Quote:
I know too much. I'm in an awful place of pain. Please pray that I will get [b]through[/b] this.


[b]THROUGH[/b]
Not out but through. Nothing is as devastating than the lifting of that undescribable sense of His presence even if it's just a drop...I know there is always a reason for these seasons sister and they very well may never be known to us. But rest assured, He knows and He knows you and loves your blessed soul.

Tarry on, until you are endued with power from on high. I will be praying.

If you are reading this, a warm welcome to our new sister, my prayers are with you also. There are many incredible brethren gathered here and the sisters especially are cut out of a different cloth, am sure you will find much to glean from their sharing amongst us here. The guy's are alright as well...you know how we are though ;-)


_________________
Mike Balog

 2005/1/6 10:42Profile
crsschk
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re:

Real quick note.

On the way into work, this popped into my thoughts...

"Be careful for nothing..."

Think you know the rest of this and am terrible at verse numbers...but doesen't this scripture finish up with "peace that..."?

Praying.


_________________
Mike Balog

 2005/1/6 11:24Profile
Gideons
Member



Joined: 2003/9/16
Posts: 474
Virginia

 Re:

We've missed you Dian.

The Puritans and Finney both preached of a doctrine called "praying through." You don't here much about these days and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find messages on this topic. I did find one on SI by B.H. Clendennen https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/visit.php?lid=5113 entitled "What it Means to Pray Through."

I've also heard Pastor Dave (Wilkerson) reference this but I haven't heard any sermons on it. I took this message from SI to my pastor and since then he has preached three different messages on "praying through."

Unfortunately for me, I'm in a desperate state as well and although I intellectually understand what it means to "pray through" I'm still not there yet.

Will keep you in prayer Dian. The Lord rarely meets anyone who is not desperate. When you look at all the people that Jesus ministered too, they were all desperate in some way or another.

Being desperate is an uncomfortable place to be, but it's a glorious place to be as well. If Jesus doesn't show up, I'm going to die of a broken heart. Yes, I've had a lot of those type prayers over the last 2-3 months.

I pray that you pray through. I also found an online book on praying through, although I must admit I haven't had time to read it through but it's a Wesleyn publication: http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyctr/books/1501-1600/HDM1531.PDF.


_________________
Ed Pugh

 2005/1/6 12:37Profile
phebebird
Member



Joined: 2004/11/23
Posts: 91
San Pedro, California

 Re: Desperation

Well, I'm supposed to be out on vacation, but my sister is visiting here and had surgery last night. Maybe so that I could be here to see this and pray...

Dian,
Your words have resonated so deeply with me before and they do now too. I think I have told you before how completely crushed I have felt...
I wrote in my diary a couple of months ago "...Why is it that I never reach a breakthrough? Why do I always fall back again? I am stuck here in a sort of no-man's-land between an wasy life in the world and a harder-but-sweeter life with God. I am afraid to turn the easy way but I cannot seem to follow God, either. God, You haven't given up on me the way I've given up on myself, have You?". It is as if I can hear myself (and you too) echoing with Paul the Apostle, "Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the bondage of this death?"

I had heard that it was a good thing to come to the end of yourself, but no one told me it would be so painful. He is so good, though, and He does whatever is necessary to bring us truly to Himself. He brings you to the end of yourself until you long for Him and you know that there truly is no good thing in you. He will not leave you there. He will satisfy your thirst.

John 7:37 has been such a blessing to me:

"On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let Him come to Me and drink.'"

Dian, I'm "anyone", you're "anyone." He will not turn us away from the River of Life. On the day I read this in the Bible, I wrote, "I am so very parched and thirsty, Lord. Forget my problems, my sins, my addictions--You said 'if anyone'. That's me. Lord, just as I am, I come. I don't know why You love me and want me, but You do. I come. Forget the fears, the apprehensions, the pride, the plans, the personal dreams--Lord, I come. Come love me. Come wash my feet. I won't run away."

And you know what? He did come. He did not leave me dry and thirsty and parched and longing. He is still dealing with me on certain things, but He is so loving.

I think that true brokenness is coming to the end, where you despair of anything in you, of any ability you might have to reach God in any way--where all you can do is throw yourself on His mercy. His mercy will hold you--"underneath are the everlasting arms."

Everyone who "goes on with God" must come to this, I think. Oswald Chambers comes to mind. He was already a Bible school teacher and much sought after Bible teacher when God brought him to this place. He stood up one night at a service and said that either Christianity was a fraud or he had "got hold of the wrong end of the stick." He said, "I had no vision of God, only a sheer dogged determination to take God at His word and to prove this thing for myself." Soon after he wrote, "Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God...After He comes in, all you see is 'Jesus only, Jesus ever.' When you know what God has done for you, the power and tyranny of sin is gone and the radiant, unspeakable emancipation of the indwelling Christ has come."

Okay, this is getting very long, so I think I will close. Please know that I will be praying for you. More importantly, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is interceding for you. (Rom 8)
Also, I just listened to "Freedom from Sin" by David Wilkerson and it was SO helpful to me. Not that I am saying you are in sin. He is more talking about the tyranny of the sinful nature that keeps us from coming into the fulness of Christ. Give it a listen if you get a chance.

Phebe

"Yearning"

What I could not do by striving,
You have done for me.
What I fought to gain I now consider loss.
What I could not see through my tears
Was You crushing me--
Your gentle hand burning out the dross.

What I thought were prison bars,
A wilderness so dry,
Was Your greatest loving gift to me.
Your grace poured out with mercy,
And me standing, undeserving,
Washed in Your blood here upon my knees.

And my one great cry is "Jesus!"
Oh, give me only Jesus!
My heart is longing, thirsting for You now.
Oh, take me where You want me!
Do anything You will!
Only let me stay here in Your presence
...here in the fragrance of Your presence
...here in Your presence bowed.




_________________
Phebe

 2005/1/6 12:40Profile
moreofHim
Member



Joined: 2003/10/15
Posts: 1632


 Re: desperation

Dian,

Crying out to God with you. For you and for me.

In His perfect love, Chanin


_________________
Chanin

 2005/1/6 13:05Profile
Spitfire
Member



Joined: 2004/8/3
Posts: 633


 Re:

Thank you all so much! Your words left me sobbing, yet comforted. I love you all. Dian.

 2005/1/6 14:20Profile
Gideons
Member



Joined: 2003/9/16
Posts: 474
Virginia

 Re: THE CHRISTIAN PILGRIM IN THE VALLEY OF BACA

I was thinking about you and this Valley of Baca you're going through and I found this on the Internet. May the Lord keep you as He brings you through this valley of Baca.

"Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also fills the pools." Psalm 84:6

"When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains!" Psalm 84:6

"God, in Israel sows the seed
Of affliction, pain, and toil;
These spring up and choke the weeds
Which would else o'erspread the soil.
Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to his feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there."

Our pilgrimage to the Heavenly Canaan lies through a valley of weeping. This earth is a valley of tears: and it is a path which all of Zion's pilgrims must tread until they come to that place where the voice of weeping shall no more be heard. "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Of God's own chosen people, it is said, "You have fed us with sorrow, and made us drink tears by the bucketful." The followers of Jesus must not, therefore, expect try find a smooth road to glory. "You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver melted in a crucible. You sent troops to ride across our broken bodies. We went through fire and flood. But you brought us to a place of great abundance."

"Our path is strewed with piercing thorns;
Each step is gained by arduous fight,
Yet wait, till hope's bright morning dawns,
Till darkness changes into light."

Some of the trials which render this world a valley of tears, and which the Christian pilgrim is called to suffer, are, bodily sickness, mental anguish, adversity, and bereavement. Who has not experienced some of these afflictions? Our limits will permit us to notice only the last mentioned- that of BEREAVEMENT. And whose cheeks have not been moistened by the tears shed for the loss of some dear companion? Who has not, in this land of death, been called to take the last look of some loved associate in his toilsome pilgrimage? To see, perhaps, his dearest friends lowered in the cold, dark grave? O how trying to flesh and blood, is bereavement!

"This is the bitterest of all earthly sorrows. It is the sharpest arrow in the quiver of God. To love tenderly and deeply, and then to have to meet together for the last time or earth; to bid farewell for time; to have all remembrances of home and kindred broken up– this is the reality of sorrow. To look upon that face that shall smile on us no more; to close those eyes that shall see us no more; to kiss those lips that shall speak to us no more; to stand by the cold side of father, mother, brother, sister, friend, yet hear no sound and receive no greeting; to carry to the tomb the beloved of our hearts, and then to return to a desolate home with a blank in one region of our souls which shall never again be filled until Jesus comes with all his saints– this is the bitterness of grief; this is the wormwood and the gall."

This is what the saints of God, as well as the men of the world, are daily called to endure; and this is what renders earth such a valley of tears.

But we would also notice the DESIGN which God has in afflicting the righteous. It is to prepare them for that better land, where there is fullness of joy. It is to draw their affections from earth to heaven- from the wilderness to Canaan. It is to make us mindful of our inheritance above- to make us feel that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth- to make us cleave to Jesus by faith- to make us meditate on the wonders of his redeeming love- to qualify us for a participation of the joys of the redeemed before the Throne. Our light, momentary affliction works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

"Affliction," says one, "not only profits us much just now, but it will serve us much in eternity. Then we shall discover how much we owe it. All that it is doing for us, we know not now, but we shall know hereafter. It is preparing for us a 'more abundant entrance,' a weightier crown, a whiter robe, a sweeter rest, a home made doubly precious by a long exile and many sufferings here below."

"I wonder," says that godly man of other days, Samuel Rutherford, "I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what the Lord is preparing for them." Says one, "When we shall come home, and enter into the possession of our brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall feel the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pain and sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow, to be less than one step or stride from a prison to a glory, and that our little inch of temporal-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to heaven. However matters go, the worst shall be a tired traveler, and a joyful and sweet welcome home."

But amid all our affliction here we are not without strong consolation. The most precious promises are extended to the mourning pilgrims of Zion. There is One who speaks to them in the tenderest love and compassion. "Sing for joy, O heavens! Rejoice, O earth! Burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on them in their sorrow." "I, even I, am the one who comforts you" There is an eye that watches over suffering pilgrims. There is a hand that smoothes the rugged passage to the realms of day. There is a Friend in Heaven, who feels for his sorrowful disciples in this valley of tears. Jesus is that Friend who sticks closer than a brother; and his encouraging language to his afflicted followers is, "Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions." "He that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with Him"

"Beloved, it is well. It is good to he afflicted. Our days of suffering here we call days of darkness; hereafter they will seem our brightest and fairest. In eternity we shall praise Jehovah, most of all for our sorrows and tears. So blessed shall they then seem to us, that we shall wonder how we could ever have wept and sighed." (Horatius Bonar)

There is a joyful 'harvest-home' for weeping pilgrims in New Jerusalem. In that happy home, no tears shall ever flow, through the glorious ages of vast eternity.
"There purity with love appears,
And bliss without alloy;
There those who oft had sown in tears
Shall reap again in joy."

Of those who are marching through this valley of tears to Immanuel's land, our gracious Heavenly Father has said: "They will come home and sing songs of joy on the heights of Jerusalem. They will be radiant because of the many gifts the Lord has given them—the good crops of wheat, wine, and oil, and the healthy flocks and herds. Their life will be like a watered garden, and all their sorrows will be gone." Then shall every tear be wiped away from the faces of all the redeemed before the throne of God.

A consideration of THE BREVITY OF THEIR EARTHLY TRIALS ought to afford relief to weary pilgrims who are looking to Jesus for eternal life. They will not be long in the valley of Baca. They will soon have reached the heights of Mount Zion. Our light affliction is but for a moment. "His anger lasts for a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may go on all night, but joy comes with the morning." How pleasing is the thought that our redemption is every moment drawing nearer. We may well lift up our heads with joy, for the coming of the Lord draws near.

Our journey to the skies is but a short one. We are rapidly advancing to the tearless region. "Every hour that strikes- every morning that dawns, and every evening that darkens around us, brings us nearer to the end of our pilgrimage." A few more tears of sorrow; a few more days of darkness, and nights of weeping, and we shall forever be with the Lord in that better country, where we shall find fullness of joy in the presence of Him who has loved us with an everlasting love- who has washed us from our sins in his own most precious blood, and who will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Then the Lord will be our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning be ended. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


_________________
Ed Pugh

 2005/1/6 17:05Profile





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