Here I am. . .

{I apologize for not getting to that “powerful message from one of my pastor‘s recordings” as I said I would “next time” on April 9th. It turns out that relaying his words requires some thought and leads me to studies of my own - Now I have too much to write and have to assimilate it first.}

I saw a song on video a short time ago when I was at the Z-launch in Houston in February. It’s a song we often sing in the church I attend. The music and lyrics are very moving:

Here I am to bow worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that
You’re my God

You’re altogether lovely,
Altogether worthy,
Altogether wonderful to me.

I’ll never know how much it cost
To see my sins upon that cross

The last two lines are repeated in a different emphasis, until the words
get you.

I was amazed when on the video, during the repetition of the last two lines
the following words (or ones like them) flashed on the video:
LUST
GREED
ARROGANCE
GLUTTONY
POVERTY - When that word came up I was stunned – POVERTY, a sin??
I thought. It was as if I were “whacked up-side the head” (as they say in
West Virginia) by the Holy Spirit.
Later I realized that the list above are not necessarily sins, but
strongholds. Or bondages. We are enslaved by such things. They can be
our idols. (God had a lot to say about idols – about His people deserting
Him. I’ll write more about that another time)
I had realized that I had a “poverty mentality” – that I was thinking more of
my needs, all those bills to be paid, than almost anything else. Try as I
would to have Jesus be my first thought at any given time, I had to fight the
battle in my mind.

I am reminded now of one of the scriptures (in red letters) that began bringing me back to God -

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life, and that
They may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

I am on a personal campaign in the War against Poverty. Would anyone care to join me?

Feel free to leave comments for this and/or earlier posts, next to the time stamp below.

In Christ,
Elizabeth