A Conversation with God
Pastor Marvin Barham
While pouring my heart out to the Father, God had a conversation with my heart. For several days and many hours during my tenure at a Tenet Revival Meeting at the Little White Church in Katy, TX, God spoke to me in this conversation in Spirit and in the Word of the Lord both in Scripture and through the mouths of other men and women of God. This is my conversation with God in my time of sorrow and increasing faith. I believe this is the Word the Lord is speaking to us all.
God? Do I know Him? Do you know Him? Do you know that you know Him? Does He know that you know Him? Those who say they know me do not know me as they say. A year of decision? What decision? To know Him. What is our decision today? In the face of pain, where is God? Who is God? Is God merciful and just? Why does He not answer our petitions? Is it a one way conversation? Or does God speak in silence but I cannot listen with my heart? Is justice that my petitions are answered and that things are fulfilled in my expectation? Justice? What do we know of justice? He is just and He is justice. Is mercy that we know not pain and brokenness of heart? Pride, resentment, anger, and offense are shallow. They blind us to deep relationship. Who am I to be offended at God? Who is God that I question His love? Did not Jesus love Lazarus? Did He not love the Father even more? Did His love for Lazarus question Fathers love or the nature of divine love? We love strong but God loves divine.
It has been said that when an eagle reaches 30 years of age he reaches a point of weakness and if he does nothing he will die. Instead, he hides in a secret place and finds a rock where he sharpens his beak until it all but falls off. Then he begins to pull out his talons and feathers. He then painfully waits and 5 months later he is a new and stronger eagle that takes flight to sore new heights.
The false prophets are and will increase. Some say theirs is a God of power. What truly is the motive of the power of their god? They are patenting and peddling the glory of God. The church has given birth to too many abominations. Mt. Carmel is before us. A just God is in the midst of it all. Mercy? Mercy is that those who remain – remain. There is a common message to the church: A day of decision, a day of change; a call to the integrity of our hearts and thoughts to, for and about God.
I must humbly confess that I do not know what I do not know about why this, or why that, about pain, suffering, life, and death. I must proclaim what I do know. I know my God. I know His heart. Oh how we love and He loves that much more. Are we to say that because we have pain He does not love? He is not gracious and merciful to our understanding and expectation? I know My God in the midst of my pain. He is gracious and merciful. He brought me out.
Out of what? Myself and everything that is not Him. Has He brought you out? Why? There is but one way out. Which way is out? Him. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." 2 Peter 1:4
What am I to do with you? You are not mine you are God’s. What do you desire? Have you had an encounter with Him? Do others encounter your life? Where are you going? What are you doing with this gift you have been given? I know where I am going and what I am doing? He has changed me. Has He you? My task is clear. What is yours?
What is the content of your conscience? "And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 2 Cor. 6:15-18
Whom doeth your soul love? With whom is your soul in love with, infatuated with? “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go…" Song of Solomon 3:1-4
Have you found Him? Has your soul found Him? What will you do? Where will you go to find Him? Does God have a problem? Do you? What will God do about it? What will you do about it? What are the limitations? Are they yours or God’s? What are the distractions? What must you do? What does your heart say? Fear not. Be challenged, be stirred in your spirit. “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:” Heb. 12:25-28
But what about the sorrow, the fear, and the uncertainty of this life? This life or the God of your life? Is it the loss in this life you fear or the God of the life to come? It is not in this life that eternity is gained but is diligently sought. This life is but a gift. Be diligent with it. Wait. For what? Before what? Everything. Breath wisely. Careful that you do not love it too much. “Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Eccl. 7:27-29
But where do you read from the Scripture? Are the Scriptures Holy to you? Do you know? Should you know? If you do not know what will you do about it? But tell us preacher. But tell us chapter and verse. I speak too much and you seek too little. Seek Him and you will find Him and He will reveal to you all mysteries of the Himself and His Kingdom.
When? When what? Then? Then what? Have you seen Him? Heard Him? Why have you not seen Him nor heard Him? Is He not speaking? What must He say to you? What question has He not already answered that you demand? Where will you go from here? What have you done? What will you do now? Tomorrow? Why not today? Where are you God? Do you not know? Why do you not know?
What shall I say to you? What would you hear? What do you want to hear? What else is to be said? What will you do with it? What have you done with the words and the Word of God spoken into your life until now?
“But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.” I Thes. 2:4-8
Who are you? Who do men say you are? Who do you say you are? Who does God say you are? What will you do with the answers? Where will they take you? “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Heb. 13:5-6
God will take drastic measures in drastic times for the sake of a jealous love. Who is telling you what to do? What to think? What to feel? What to say? Who to be? What to become? What will become of you? If you are unsure of who is telling you what to do then who is? What has God told you? You sit here listening. Are you listening? Are you thinking? What are you thinking? Listen to what you are thinking. Why do you think what you are thinking? Why do you think that way? Why are you thinking and not listening? What are you thinking with? Simply your ears? Your mind, your soul, your heart?
What is happening? Oh God what is happening? Yes! What is happening? Why? What will we do with it? What next? Where do we go from here? How?
What would you that God should do? Then what? What do you want to do? Why? Would that we sing? Dance? Come to the altar? Hear another prophetic word? See a sign or wonder? To do what? What is God saying? What is He not saying? Do you know?
What is inside you? Who is inside you? Have you been with God? Why not? Is this acceptable to you? Is it to God? What should be done? Who will do it? What is your purpose? What is the time? When? Now? Later? Is there a later? Do you know Him? Are you about His business? “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” John 12:49
What must you do? What must you say? Do it while you wait with patient faith. Patient faith is not doing nothing it is doing it in the Spirit of God with the judgment of God. Judgment? Sound judgment in decisions of the Spirit of God. And you shall have a sign, not that men shall know your name. God has known it. But that the devils shall know. KNOW ME. KNOW THAT YOU KNOW. KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO AND DO WHAT YOU KNOW YOU MUST.
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