Understanding the Times: Part 8- High Places in our Hearts

“I am the LORD; that is my name. I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.” Isa 42:8

My Beloved Family,

I have been preparing my next part on the Deeper Communion Series. Father-God has an all-consuming fire within Him to experience deep, open intimacy with His children.

But there is something in the way right now. Something I am convicted is on His loving and longing heart that I desire to convey accurately and purely before we can talk more about steps and tools to “going deeper.”

So… I shall do my best. 

The Lord is calling His Body to Himself. There is a cry sounding from His throne-room to gather to His heart and walk with Him beyond the depth each one of us is currently experiencing. Likewise, each generation is summoned, with great passion, to His heart. Each generation must overcome the particular snares of that hour to answer this call. This is a spiritual reality we must face if we are to move beyond it. Currently, much of the the Body of Christ is presently divided into three camps in this generation. They are: 

• Those seeking to find self-worth in spiritual experiences.

• Those seeking to find worth in a sense of unworthiness, where we share our heart with Him and our own sense of unholiness.

• A third, which is… well… just the pleasant distraction found simply in relating to fellowship as a social club and means to incur a weekly emotional high. “Playing church” is an expression I have heard spoken in regard to this.

Please understand. Chances are we are held captive to a combination of the conditions cited above. We can make any excuse we want to shut God out in any area we choose. It’s so beyond easy… and the Church is excelling in it. We are keeping certain spiritual doors shut within ourselves ( and those doors are different for each person) that lead to greater intimacy because we are unwilling to fully, deeply, and without compromise, look at our hurts, fears and pains.  Instead we are distracting ourselves with “religion” in all its varied and clever garnishings.

In this hour, the Holy Spirit is asking for permission to speak to us about what is on our Heavenly-Dad’s heart. He longs to guide us, comfort us, and give us joy in place of sorrow.

We need to learn to stop being so afraid.  We also need to forgive.

It is not simply the doctrines we need to be wary of… it is the darkened motives of our heart, trying to find a counterfeit self-worth that leads us to be drawn to these substitutes of true intimacy. These crutches are merely the result of us not allowing Him to take our wounds and scars. At some point in our journey, it becomes more about our pain that prevents us from walking by the Mind of Christ within us than anything else.

Many of us were not taught or discipled the way we were meant to be. This is called His “permissive will.” The bible gives us a wonderful blueprint on how true, deep, loving family life is meant to flow. Salvation, growth, healing, maturity, light the way for others… next generation, repeat.

However, the reality is, most of us either grew up under a controlling, manipulative “fellowship” or we sat quietly in a dead, dry, “religious” born-again gathering. Or… we grew up in the wilderness, vowing to cling to whatever is the opposite extreme of the area we were abused and wronged under.

Our Church family structure has become impressively dysfunctional. We reject correction, training, sound doctrine and teaching, discipleship, gifts and callings, deep communion, and above all, His unconditional love for each other and the lost.

My dear, dear, cherished family.  It is time to heal. It is time to muster the courage to cry and weep and repent of the areas we began to replace our intimacy with… things: “spiritual” things that either entertain, or offer a temporary rest to our soul instead of deepening our communion. Or, for some perhaps, doctrinal topics that make us feel spiritual in our unworthiness, and worthy in our spirituality. 

“The people, however, continued to sacrifice at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.”

2 Chron 33:17

There were dedicated hills and specially erected altars upon which people would honor and exalt false gods. This is a polite way of saying man worshiped Satan. When Israel repented, they would still use these pagan altars, but instead, now attempted to worship the Lord Himself on them. The problem was the foundation was, from its very cornerstone and inception, corrupt and unclean and opposed to God’s very nature.

Within the Body of Christ, these spiritual  “high places” are all around us in this hour. Among us… within our hearts and thoughts and beliefs. We have been attempting to commune and worship Him from these same darkened foundations.

We can no longer relate to Him this way.  Ways that serve to distract and self-sooth and bolster our sense of worth.  

In parting, let me encourage us all (myself included). It is OK. It is all… OK. This is the power of His love. This is the power of the Living Resurrection and His Spirit that lives within our spirit-man.  It is this:

We are loved. Without conditions.  

We are accepted.. With all our idols. 

He just wants more of me. He wants more of you..

Our Savior did not die in order to divvy up our heart with the pains and hurts and fears we hold. These leviathans are meant to be destroyed, not tamed.  These altars are meant to be uprooted, not re-allocated for a “good cause.”

Give the Spirit of God access to all the areas of our being, and not just some of them. He loves us too much, and is too adoringly jealous for our affection to share our heart with any substitute that has been given place in His stead.

Anyway, this is something that is on our Father’s heart. Please consider it in your time with Him.

In so much love,

David~