Hello to my family of friends, new and old. I hope you are well and enjoying each day you are given here on earth. I know we all have our good days and our not so good days, but we can choose to push through the tough ones, wear a smile, and draw our strength from the Lord. He promises He will get us through, if we put our hope and faith in him!
I was going to write about something else this go around, but I am switching gears and sharing with you something that I just experienced early this morning in the 5 o'clock hour.
I will begin this story, by telling you a little about my time spent with a long-time cherished childhood friend, who came to visit us this weekend. During our time together, Danae and I reminisced about years we shared together from High School through College. We were also fortunate enough this weekend, to make some fun new memories together as well. On Saturday, we had the opportunity to see many amazing sea lions, birds, and beautiful cliffs that lined the La Jolla beach area. When Sunday morning came, we all agreed to start our day with watching church on TV, before we had breakfast. We decided to turn on a recent sermon from Dr. David Jeremiah that was recorded around 3/18/23 called Delivering The Unchanging Word Of God. We all loved the sermon, and took much from it. I highly recommend watching this and others sermons from him! I will share the link at the bottom of this post and in the "FOOD FOR THOUGHT" section.
The sermon was about filling your life with The Holy Spirit, what it means to be filled with The Holy Spirit, and how we go about it. Dr. Jeremiah shared about a sermon that was spoken at a large crusade, by a man named DL Moody, an evangelist in the 1800's. Moody held up an empty water glass and said, "how can I get the air out of this glass?" after numerous suggestions were made, one man yelled out, "just suck it out with a pump." Moody said, "That would shatter the glass." Then Moody smiled and picked up a pitcher of water and filled up the glass, "There, he said, all the air is removed." He went on to explain that victory in the Christian life is not accomplished by sucking out "a" sin here or there, but by being filled with The Holy Spirit. He said, "Two things can't occupy the same place at the same time. If you allow the Holy Spirit to fill your life, there will be no room for sin, and sin will go out and be replaced." Dr. Jeremiah said, "Another pastor explained it this way. "The fullness of The Holy Spirit produces a life of profound beauty. It fills our heart, and the resulting characteristics produces a sublime bouquet. When a heart is full of spiritual music that flows back up to God, then out to brothers and sisters in psalms and spiritual songs, radically giving thanks, joyfully submitting to it's brothers and sisters, it is absolutely and inescapably compelling." Just by reading a few of the quotes that were said by these amazing men, I am sure you are seeing how impactful this sermon must have been.
I will do my best to try and explain in this post, what I experienced the morning of 3/21/23.
I woke at 4:45 and I knew the Lord was tugging at my heart to go downstairs and pray. Of course, I was tired and a bit tempted to lay back in bed, but I knew it would be well worth the time, I was going to spend with the Lord :) I knew He could supernaturally restore the hours of sleep I would be loosing, so I went downstairs. I put down a comfy blanket on the floor, knelt down, and began to pray with my face on the blanket. I prayed for many things, many people, and I also began to give God thanks for everything that came into my mind; for everything He is, and does. After praying a while, I looked up from my place on the floor, and saw that daybreak had just begun. It was no longer dark outside. I had lost track of time. Beyond the sliding glass door in front of me, that leads out to the patio, we have a chimenea. Because there was a nightlight shining behind me in the room, it allowed my silhouette to PERFECTLY be cast on to the chimenea, through the glass sliding door. My silhouette, which was cast on to the chimenea, could have fit perfectly into the vessel, but I could obviously see, that the chimenea was behind my reflection. I wish I could have taken a picture of the silhouette I was seeing, but I was too encompassed in the moment. I took the picture I have added to this post, a few hours later to help give you some perspective.
As I sat on the blanket just staring out the sliding glass door, it caused me to think back on the sermon we had watched, just a few days before, from Dr. David Jeremiah . As I looked at the chimenea, it represented to me a person, and their heart. The silhouette, that was cast from the outline of my body, was in perfect alignment on to the chimenea, and represented to me, God's Holy Spirit. You could barely see the chimenea around the outline of my silhouette, as I looked at it. It gave me the opportunity to visualize the message, in Dr. Jeremiah's sermon. If we do not ask God to fill our heart up with His Holy Spirit, the fullness of His Holy Spirit is outside us (which was represented by the silhouette I was seeing on the chimenea.) God's Holy Spirit is waiting for the invitation to come in, and reside in us. Dr. Jeremiah reminds us, If our hearts are filled full of other things, we are keeping ourselves from all that the Holy Spirit has for our lives. We are bound to what we fill our hearts with.
I believe we are robbing ourselves of the freedom, love, truth, and joy only God, Jesus, and His Holy Spirit can give us. He is the triune God, who consists of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, 3-in-1. He will never leave you nor forsake you...Deuteronomy 31:8
Here is a closeup of the chimenea I was looking at. It was a beautiful drizzly morning.
I took this picture from where I was kneeling down, when I had this experience.
What a cool experience I had, on the morning of 3/21/23. It was so amazing, I had to write about it the morning it happened. If I hadn't taken the invitation the Lord gave me to spend time with Him, and I had went back to my cozy bed, I would have missed out. Can you imagine how patient the Lord must be with us when He desires to completely be a part of our lives, but we only let Him in a little bit or not at all?! Can you imagine how much we are missing out on?! The creator of the universe want's a relationship with imperfect amazing us. He is our creator, and we are His masterpiece. What a concept that is to try and wrap your head around. He died on the cross for our sins, all we have to do is repent with a sincere heart, and ask Him to live inside us. We are redeemed through the blood of Jesus, He shed on the cross. It says in His word in 1 John 9-10,
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
After having that experience, I got into my Bible, and then began to write this post. I am so happy I was able to share this with you today! I hope you were able to somewhat grasp what I experienced. It was a bit difficult to try and translate into words. I am so blessed, I had a topic I was going to write on, but The Holy Spirit changed the direction in which He wanted me to go. This therefore gave me the incredible experience I had to share with you. I encourage you to spend some quality alone time with Him. It is amazing what can happen if you do. Thank you Lord!
If you haven't asked Jesus to live in your heart, The Holy Bible tells us we need to do this in order for us to be accepted into His kingdom, before our lives come to an end. Why wait, there is so much peace and joy to experience with Him! I will include a link to a prayer of salvation, and a good article that goes into this topic more extensively at the bottom of this post. Maybe you have a family member or friend that you think would like to say The Prayer Of Salvation with you. If you do decide to pray this prayer, I would love to know about your experience, and I will rejoice with you. I will continue to keep you all in my prayers. God bless you my treasured friends, and have a wonderful rest of your week!
With love and thanksgiving,
Jen Henry
As a parting note, it is important to remember that our creator did not create us to be perfect. He gave us a choice and a mind. If he hadn't given us a choice and a mind, we would therefore be like robots. What fun would that be?!
Here is a good article that includes prayers from Crosswalk, if you want to know more about asking Jesus into your heart.
Here is a good article from Crosswalk, if you want to know more about praying for the salvation of others:
Here is link to the sermon from Dr. David Jeremiah at Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego, Ca.
Song Medley by Cee Cee Winans: Fill My Cup Lord, It Wasn't Easy, Without Love
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart...
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