present

Have you ever felt your interior parts needed a new coating? Perhaps you were “living out of memory”-- in the past-- and not out of present, the here and now, which is the true gift of God and where He is eternally, in the NOW? I recently caught myself thinking this way-- living in the past-- and so I re-read a beautiful writing sent to me by my friend Biz Blee by Dr. Anthony Lilles and I asked that the Pneuma-- the breath of God-- come and seal all parts of me that are in need of His “Newness, His NOW.”

We “Missionary Disciples” are far from perfect. We are called to do great things, but always by and through His grace. We must breathe deeply the breath of God in order for Him to set us free, energize and enable us.

My prayer is that you will feel the loving, wooing call of our Risen Lord, and allow Him to flow through you to enable you to do more than you could possibly imagine YOURSELF doing since you are powered by His Spirit. And I pray that you inhale so deeply His sweet breath that you float through this world...until you rise up, up, up...to union with Him.

Ahhh...If we only knew the Gift of God.

Beginning to Pray

A Missionary Disciple and the Gift of God

The disciples of the Risen Lord are missionary. They are sent out by Him into the world to be messengers of Divine Mercy, and their teaching is not their own. They know that they have been entrusted with a pearl beyond price, the mustard seed, the one thing that does not fail when all else fails around them. They declare what they have heard because what they hear has turned their whole world upside down and given them ground on which to stand, rock on which to build, "If you knew the Gift of God."

They are sent out because the One sent to them commands them. Raised from their sight, and at the same time, always mysteriously present in new and surprising ways, they follow in the footsteps of their Crucified Master. Their mission is to reveal His love in the face of alienation and hostility, to bring action filled words of hope into hopeless situations, to propose and re-propose faith for eyes yet unable to glimpse the glory of God. In all this and so much more, they long to satisfy the great thirst by which Christ cries out, "If you knew the Gift of God."

The One who conquered death asks the Father to send Tongues of Fire to these disciples whom He has sent. Thus, this Mysterious Breath from the Heart of Father and Son breathes in them, sealing the deepest interior of their hearts with the freedom to offer their lives in love. The Father and the Son have always delighted in this excess of joy because in sovereign freedom They forever seal their own love with this Consuming Fire. Now in pure jubilation, because the Risen Lord has asked it and because all things are given Him, the frailest creature can also know this Uncreated Gift until one's whole being echoes, "If you knew the Gift of God."

Missionary disciples live by breathing in the Holy Spirit's animating presence through which with great delicacy He lavishes on them spiritual gifts of every kind. New and unfamiliar wonders bathe these souls as their whole existence aches with both the exaltation of heavenly canticles and the heart-piercing cry of the most vulnerable, the very same music resounding in the depths of God. In this symphony of truth, the true disciple discovers how to rest in the tenderness of God and, even more, how to be so tender with God that He might rest in them, "If you knew the Gift of God."

The intensity with which the Fire of God's Love burns in them is the same intensity that propels them out into the most painful of life's problems. Into the dangerous peripheries of society and into the troubled heart of a family, for the sake of both friends and enemies alike, the missionary disciple is not afraid to enter with the peace of Christ. Animated by the Spirit, these disciples breathe forth a hidden fruitfulness so super-abundant, this life is too short and limited to hold it all. Even in their dying breath, one can hear them sing, "If you knew the Gift of God."

A missionary disciple is a soul lit ablaze, a fiery icon of love and truth, a window through which the joy of heaven shines with life saving splendor. By making of their bodies a living sacrifice, true spiritual worship, such missionary souls offer divine warmth, light and life to a cold, dark and dying world. Through these generous souls, even when brutally rejected and scorned unto death, the joy from on high is revealed here below, especially where it is most needed. Because they have sung sealed with the Holy Spirit, others now sing "If you know the Gift of God."

Read more at: http://beginningtopray.blogspot.com

The one who sat on the throne* said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then he said, “Write these words down, for they are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:5.

Dear Lord,

I want to be a missionary disciple and have You fill me up to overflowing, setting my heart ablaze and enabling me to tell others of Your love. I pray that my life could be one long…”If you only knew the Gift of God…” making others want to know You because they see You shining forth in me. Come Lord Jesus, fill me anew with Your breath of love each and every day. Let me not be content with “living out of memory” but let me be presently and forever Yours!

I ask this in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.