Not Just the Alabaster Jar (Psalms 72: Hinimay ko Para sa Sarili ko at Para sa Inyo. :D)

Share again. :)

I just finished my four chapters for Wednesday (it's still Wednesday on my body clock, because I hadn't slept yet. Woke up late again. :D), and I thought to share once more.

I believe that Psalms 72 is David's prayer for his heir Solomon, and the future glory of Israel. And yet, since David is also one of God's prophets, and the patriarch from which our Lord Jesus descended, he sometimes blurts out waaaaaaaaaay future prophecies. Like things related to the Lord.

So enjoy the Psalm, and my annotations of my understanding of it.

Psalms 72

1 O God, give the king your justice and the king's son your righteousness 2 so that he may judge your people with righteousness and your oppressed [people] with justice. 3 May the mountains bring peace to the people and the hills bring righteousness. 4 May he grant justice to the people who are oppressed. May he save the children of needy people and crush their oppressor. 5 May they fear you as long as the sun and moon [shine]-- throughout every generation. 6 May he be like rain that falls on [freshly] cut grass, like showers that water the land. 7 May righteous people blossom in his day. May there be unlimited peace until the moon no longer [shines]. 8 May he rule from sea to sea, from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. 9 May the people of the desert kneel in front of him. May his enemies lick the dust. 10 May the kings from Tarshish and the islands bring presents. May the kings from Sheba and Seba bring gifts.

11 May all kings worship him. May all nations serve him.

(This could be interpreted as one of King David's blurt-outs about his "Descendant," our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. )

12 He will rescue the needy person who cries for help and the oppressed person who has no one's help. 13 He will have pity on the poor and needy and will save the lives of the needy.

14 He will rescue them from oppression and violence. Their blood will be precious in his sight.

When we are oppressed and pulled from all sides by people or circumstances, take heart, Jesus sees our travails. He sees our pain, and these are precious to Him. Whatever we may have lost, these are not in vain, these will not go to waste. These are learnings that we can use to help others, or even profit from, in the future.

15 May he live long. May the gold from Sheba be given to him. May [the people] pray for him continually. May [they] praise him all day long. 16 May there be plenty of grain in the land. May it wave [in the breeze] on the mountaintops, its fruit like [the treetops of] Lebanon. May those from the city flourish like the grass on the ground. 17 May his name endure forever. May his name continue as long as the sun [shines]. May all nations be blessed through him and call him blessed.

18 Thank the LORD God, the God of Israel, who alone does miracles. 19 Thanks be to his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen!


Oh yes. He alone does miracles. I pray that we would stop looking to other people, to systems, to traditions, to practices that we think would save us. Even healing from doctors, He alone will decide the final outcome. Even deaths are not in vain to Him; He decides, in His wisdom, who lives and dies. The keys of Death and Hades are already in His hands (Revelation 1:18). He decides whether you live or die.

We don't need to "fear" the Lord in the terrified-oh-He-iz-God-He-must-want-to-kill-me-for-my-sins kind of way. He has already paid for our sins on the cross. But we must abhor sin, not for the fact that it is sin so we must abhor it, period. We abhor sin because it tramples the depth of what He did for us. It tramples the precious sacrifice He made on the cross.

It was not just Mary of Bethany's perfume in an alabaster jar that was spilled in Jesus' time.

Jesus' body was broken, much like the alabaster jar, and His blood, much like the perfumed oil, was poured out to cover our sins. We had been paid for. We take care of ourselves, because we revere the sacrifice He did for us.

I love Jesus. :) He never fails to make me smile. :)

Identity and Ego: A Pruning

I just concluded a day-long struggle with Jesus. Like Jacob as the Lord broke his hip, I had wrestled with God, thinking that I was okay, and that everything that caused this pain was more of the externals: whatever that other person did, whatever that other person thought, demons... I attributed the pain to everything but my own sin months ago, when I dared God, much like Bruce Almighty.

After going through half of Secrets of the Vine the audiobook... I finally realized what it was all about. Not trusting that God was doing this for my own good; not trusting that God was all-wise and almighty in how He had shaped some things in my life that I had no control over.

I know that it’s not yet perfectly over, I still hadn’t broken through to the point as in Forrest Gump when Lieutenant Dan had swam peacefully in the sea, after the storm wherein he shook his fist at God and dared Him, but I know that it’s only going to be an inch yet, and I’ll stop grasping for the things I hold onto so dearly. Partly for self-protection, and partly because of, as I said, an innate mistrust that God would level mountains for me and break clouds for me.

I am thankful that He shook me today. No wonder I was craving for Secrets of the Vine (sadly my copy is with a friend). Good thing that themannareserve.com is there; I was able to download the audiobook, at the very least. What would have taken days of reading the book itself took at least just a few hours of my night to listen to. :)

I miss God's thicker presence.. :) Thankfully it’s nearly Sunday. :) He is soo good. :)

I'm So Happy!

My book is finally out...... Coz I got tired of the slooooooooooow publisher I chose! I need to eat too, and Patience isn't exactly one of my most marked virtues. Heheh.

So if you want to download my products as I churn them, when the promos are over (I aim to raffle out the first 50 electronic copies of each book as soon as I put it out), do come over to my Lulu.com store!

Lorie's Lulu.com Store

For 12 Hours Only! E-Book Promo!

Okay, so I got tired of waiting for the publisher to get a move on, coz they get so many submissions, so I thought I'd make use of my Multiply "Fan Base" so that I could get to distribute a "first peek" of the book I finished. I'll be giving away 50 full copies for free, to be sent by email. The conditions are: answer this one question that I'll post below this, and the top 50 answers get my book for free! Promo runs from 10:30 PM tonight to 10:30 AM tomorrow! Time stamps later than 10:30 AM tomorrow will no longer be qualified. :)




Now, are you ready?




Question:

What is it that you love doing the most?



First 50 BEST answers win for yourself this e-book!



Sample:


Oh my gosh. And the world crumbled beneath my feet. I thought all I needed to be was to be thinner and to have clear skin. I thought I would be content when I got thinner, when I got the curves and my face's bone structure had emerged. At that moment, it was then that I finally got hit with the realization that there is no wonder why even beauty queens profess that they struggle with self-esteem issues too. That moment with the mirror taught me that even as everyone around me praised me, and even as I had seen how beautiful I got, physical beauty should never be my yardstick for my self-esteem. Because like a black hole, vanity never gets satisfied...


You like it? Answer the question now! :)

What took you so long, Lorie?

Just an update: I'm still alive. I was just busy running around trying to make a living and trying to find a source of living. I finally got tired of twisting people's arms to get what I want. I forgot that the weapons with which we face the battles we slug on throughout our lives isn't similar, AT ALL, to the way things are fought in literal battles.

If an enemy throws you a stone, throw him back a piece of bread... In love.

What took me so long to learn that?

What took me so long to learn that deception, suspicion, etc., fear, are not the weapons I should fight with? What took me so long to realize that I have to obey God and be like Him: react like Him in every which way I could muster? And even then, I could only react like Him when He ENABLES me to..

What took me so long to shed my ego?

What took me so long to stop performing?

I asked the Lord before whether any of these pains I bore were in vain. He told me that not one of these pains were wasted.

It took me a while to realize why He said that none of my pains and travails were wasted...

Right now I realize: that my pains were dealt me in order to glorify Him.

In my wounds and my recovery from them, He is most glorified. Because I had not overcome on my own. He carried me. He healed me. Changed my heart of stone into flesh.

From my scars, people can learn and realize that someone else went through these things too.

Thank You, Lord that You didn't let me go through what I could not bear. But thank You that every single thing that ailed me, that pained me... You will use all of them.

Thank You, Father, that You are turning me more like Your Son, perfect in every way.

Each overcoming, each moment that I get driven closer to being like the Lord is such pain for me, because His character is so unlike mine. In moments of calm like this... I appreciate having been born.


LOVE YOU LORD!!!

Gossip, Fault-finding, Witchcraft Prayerz... Jezzie, is that you?!

We women want the best for each other, and in so doing, we tend to urge each other to do the things we wish we were doing.

I was recently listening to an mp3 about Overcoming the Spirit of Jezebel. But before you declare that this is another loony mystical chuvaness, I would like to emphasize how practical this actually is.

If you are struggling with:

• fault-finding
• having a pattern of creating a small following for yourself and ensuring that the dependence is on you
• initiating and letting gossip proliferate
• dishonoring your parents and other hallmarks of disobedience and lawlessness/despising authority
• using your feminine charms to reassure yourself of your worth
• trying to control the situations and the people around you (which is borne out of fear)
• witchcraft (if not explicit witchcraft, trying to direct God’s hand by praying directive prayers for the ones you love, instead of asking for His will to be done)
• opening up to the seductive nature of media and of people, men and women, around you
• willful deception
• immorality
• compromise
• the “Ahab nature” which is turning a blind eye to injustice and sin,

...then you may well have, or be affected by, or attacked by the Jezebel spirit also.

It was so weird because I had “carried” this spirit for so long, and I wasn’t aware of it until my last Victory Weekend. Then in recent weeks, God had been leading me to Revelation 2:18-29, and I’ve been noticing how severe the Jezebel spirit had been affecting me, and the people around me.

We cannot pray it away, folks. As long as Hollywood and media agree with and perpetuate it, and people sin because they think it’s okay, Jezebel and her minions will proliferate. If we walk blindly into spiritual battles then be caught unaware, then we will always be at the losing end in the wrestling match with that principality.

If you note that there is conflict around you, and that you seem to be in the middle of it, if you note the above traits in yourself, then you can be sure that either you are under attack, or are condoning that spirit.

Unlike other spirits, it cannot easily be bound and cast out. You have to make a decision:

• Not to accuse your brethren (cellmates, friends, family).
• Not to start with fault-finding.
• Not to agree with sins that defile, and separate you from God.

I cannot be a Pharisee-hypocrite hybrid and say that I was fully delivered from this. I can only say that I was devastated recently by how seriously flogged I’ve been by this spirit. Worse was that until I had my awareness today, I had actually agreed with it. Which makes me all the more grieved about it.

The only solution is to:

• repent
• pray
• pray more for others around you
• pray for protection for you, and others around you
• put on the Armor of God (references: here and here)
• fast if you need to
• recognize where Jezebel operates in your life.

And when you sin, repent, put on the Armor, then ask Jesus to be a Seal upon your heart and your life. “Jezebel bleeding,” in my experience, is manifested in accusation and in talking way too much. For this, I notice that when I repent and ask for the Armor of God, these are not enough. In these cases, I ask Jesus to be a seal upon my heart and seal my spiritual wounds once more.

Sin is like a spiritual wound dealt upon you. Because of sin, you lose your boundaries, and you lose self-control. When things get too out of hand, and no amount of prayer seems to work, or it just seems laborious, I pray that someone listens to my tip with asking Jesus to be a Seal upon your heart and life once more.

Spiritual warfare necessitates that we make use of the weapons God gave us: the Word. There are Words He’s said that could be used as tools to help keep us sane in this crazy unreal reality of existence. I pray you take heed.

Also, let’s avoid praying “witchcraft prayers” for each other. Let God and the person deal with the details in their lives. If you are a cell leader, make sure that you pray for the Fruit of the Holy Spirit (character and humility) and Christ’s love and likeness to be manifested more in their lives. These are what matter. The rest are shadows and not yours to intrude upon.

Let's also remember that only Praise for Jesus would infinitely chase those clouds of doom that Jezebel brought. Psalm 149 is what seems to be the prayer of the season for me. If you got shot down, get up. Get up and praise God! Do not give in to those feelings of discouragement, those are not your own feelings! Separate yourself from that and hold on to the fact that Jesus loves you and would never leave you nor forsake you, and neither is there condemnation in Him.

God bless your day.

My Beloved

Every time I fall short, stumble, fall, the line, "I see no stain on you, My child" always comes to mind. It breaks my heart to remember that, every time, and I'm reposting so you could read and appreciate too. I first heard the song on ElijahStreams.com. Hope I can get a copy to share with you soon.

This is the true essence of our belief in Jesus, the Son of God, that we have been washed, and the Father sees the stain on us no more.

My Beloved

By Christ for the Nations

Verse 1:

You're My Beloved

You're My Bride

To sing over you is My delight

Come away with Me

My love


Verse 2:

Under My mercy

Come and wait

Till we are standing face to face

I see no stain on you

My child


Chorus:

You're Beautiful to Me

So beautiful to Me


Verse 3:

I sing over you

My song of peace

Cast all your care down at My feet

Come and find your rest

in Me


Bridge:

I'll breathe My life inside of you

I'll bear you up on eagle's wings

And hide you in the shadow of My strength

I'll take you to My quiet waters

I'll restore your soul

Come rest in Me and be made whole