At all costs, prayer and communication must be maintained. Otherwise, we open ourselves up to the enemy of our souls. The flesh is weak, and although the spirit may indeed be very willing, a moment of fleshly decision, emotion, or reaction can be very costly. We must recognize at the onset that anything alive within our self is going to block the progress of God’s Holy Spirit.  We must run unencumbered or we will not “run” at all. Self must be conquered, and the only way to conquer it is through the cross. Self cannot be reasoned with, rationalized, or justified. It has no choice but to die … if it truly wants to live where Jesus desires it to live. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12).

Dying involves great pain, but if we as the church are going to stand out in the midst of the world, how do we do so? How does the light of Jesus Christ shine forth from our hearts and homes to attract the lost around us? Once we are saved, we must diligently set out to embrace the cross of Jesus Christ. Any self left will only open the door for the enemy’s attempts to thwart us from God’s best. We have not yet begun to move in the power of God as He has ordained for the last days.

Those lovers who are now practicing the laying down of their lives and their rights are building the foundation of Godly power. Right now, God, in hiddenness, is preparing the hearts who will lay down their lives hourly and daily with total abandonment.

What we see on the outside will have little to do with the inner man or woman. In fact, the outside is so often illusory that those who map their progress by what is visible will miss the ways of God and His awesome workings.

©2005 Masterpiece of the Wilderness, Deanna Deering