Wow....that's all I can say.

Tricked Ya! haha so "Wow" is really not ALL I am going to say. I am going to say a whole lot more than that.

To continue on from my last post "The Answer" I want to add that God is doing amazing things in me right now. I couldn't really see that over the last few months. So much was going on in my life, in my heart, and in my walk with God that I thought for sure this was all just one of those "Valleys" and I would have to just walk through it. Meanwhile I started to have the attitude of "OK God, could you kind of cut us a break here?". It was a very sinful attitude of thinking God could allow things only so far, and then I was very impatient while waiting for Him to return my life back to a way in which suited me. I don't think I knew I was thinking that way at the time, but in hindsight, I know that I was. What I realize now, is that God knew what He was doing the whole time (shocking I know!).

When I was living my life apart from God, I walked a very sinful life. It was filled with fornication, drugs, smoking, anger, depression, gossip, envy, and complete disrespect for others and for God. YET He loved me and called me out of my life of despair. A life that surely one day would have completely destroyed me. He came and gave me the strength and the WILL to quit doing the things I was doing. It took a long time but most of my outward sinful pleasures ceased to exist in my life. Sanctification complete right?? Not even close. True, I knew there was still several "small"(in comparison to the "big" things I used to do) things I was doing that displeased the Lord, like being disrespectful to my husband, or getting angry at family, or being lazy. Even so, I don't think I could have imagined what God was still wanting to do in me.

One way I can describe it is with this verse in Matthew 5:27-28 "27"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' 28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (emphasis mine)

The heart is the most important step according to the words of Jesus. Adultery was the outward "sign" of the inward lustful thoughts. Adultery was just the opportunity taken from a lust filled heart. The lust is what God wants to eradicate. From the very beginning He wanted to walk with us as a man walks with His friend or Father.

No I don't have a problem with looking lustfully on a woman (whew!), but I DO have a heart problem.

You see I always thought that the hard part would be giving up the outward stuff, the physical stuff. Like quitting smoking and drinking, or staying pure and living modestly. But God is and always will be interested in the HEART. God started with the outward stuff because that's the small stuff compared to the things of the heart. It is NOW that I am in the painful but glorious process of God holding up a mirror to my soul and showing me all the sin that lays "in there" that He wants to clean up too.
I have seen lately that in my heart but not always in action, I am....
*an adulterer
*an idolater
*greedy
*selfish
*rude
*lazy
*bitter
*judgmental
*self righteous

OUCH! those physically hurt almost to type. But such is the human condition, is it not? When the Bible says that we are fallen, it was not joking. When Paul said He was chief among sinners, I really can relate.

I truly am seeing this whole cleansing of the heart process so much more clearer now. Look at these scriptures about how he searches the heart.

1 Chronicles 28:9
"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.

And here Jesus say's it plain as day in Matthew 9:4
"Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, 'Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?"

He can certainly ask us ALL that question couldn't He?

Now let me be clear, I do not believe what God has been showing me lately is condemnation. I believe as the scriptures say, that there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I believe what He was doing was growing me through revelation and conviction. Which is the Holy Spirits job, right?? Well He is doing his job well lately in my heart. At the start of the process I felt like much like David when he wrote the 13th Psalm...
Psalm 13:2
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?

As David was, I was feeling the weight of the thoughts, the weight of refusing God's peace because I was refusing His sanctification. But now I am feeling like I am entering into a new growing time of actually, dare I say, wanting Him to search my heart and tell me. I think David too felt that way when he wrote Psalm 139...
Listen to this amazing Psalm written thousands of years ago by a man being affected by the very same God
Psalm 139:1-18
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

So here I sit, a wicked woman indeed. Yet I own the knowledge that my God never intended to leave me that way. The same God that called me away from a life of destruction is the same God that wants to save my precious heart from destruction. What a great and wonderful peace I have knowing that my God see's the thoughts of my heart, and loves me anyway. He knows me deeply yet works on me daily to mold me as clay in the potters hand. I cannot tonight even try to write about some of the miraculous things that have taken place in the last 24 hours, but it has been amazing. The greatest part has been the fact that God is not using this "showing of my sin" to shame me into change, He is using this to show me his love. That although humanity is wicked beyond imagination, He still sacrificed everything for us. He humbled himself for us, died for, rose victoriously for us, and all for what?? To gloat it over us? NO! To call us as precious children to His side. He loves me, for that I am sure.
He wishes my heart to be at peace, and that is part of his purpose in all this. I am finally feeling His peace completely take over my whole being. Praise God. He came just in time :)