My name, Lisa, means “consecrated one” – which is to be “set apart unto God”. I was raised in a Christian home. Both my parents had strong personal relationships with Jesus. I made a personal decision to follow Him myself at an early age, and have felt His presence over me for my entire life. I have so many “God moments” throughout my life that testify of this and have increased my faith along the way, and they are all incredible to talk about! If you ever need to hear a faith building story, I hope you ask me!
But there are times when I have looked back and my eye tends to focus on the failures. “Lord”, I ask, “what about this time when… or that time where…” (ugh, and cringe!). The beautiful thing about God is that He doesn’t focus on our failures. Instead He loves us in our process, in our weakness, in our journey. He looked at my heart and the willingness in my spirit to say “YES!” to His promptings again and again. Knowing this encourages me and helps change my perspective. Looking back now, I can see where through the patience, longsuffering, power, and persistence of the Holy Spirit, the YES in my spirit (yes, I will …) has grown to be more consistent, and the NO to any/all of those things has become less frequent, and I am so grateful that He is committed to completing a good work in me!
I have recently chosen to solidify Mark 12:30-31 as my life goal – not just a one-time and done moment, but purposefully setting this goal before me in a willingness to become radically aligned to His leadership in my life, to reset again and often – as often as it takes. I want to love Him, to know Him, and to be known by Him – called out, set apart! I do this believing that if loving Him is continually my primary focus above all, that everything else – all the mysteries and hardships and everything along my journey – will all fall into place. When I stand before Him and He asks the question “Did you learn to love, to truly LOVE?”, I can say yes, and He will call my life choices great!
Why? Because I have learned that to be “radical” for God doesn’t just apply to someone who has the ability to be red-hot for Him in short bursts, where people see and point out “WOW, she’s really on fire for God!”. It is more radical to be consistent in the quiet moments, in the long valleys, to continue to say yes to Him in my spirit again and again – not only for a few weeks, months or even years – but decade over decade, an entire life sold out to God and God alone.
I purposefully pray often for the children that attend my church. I pray they, too, would be consecrated unto God, to walk with Him and radically love Him all the days of their lives, and not wait a lifetime to make loving Him their primary passion! I pray against the plans of the enemy over our children, that he would not be allowed to have any of them – not a single one. I pray each of our children will see the greatness, beauty, and power of the Lord in such a way that far out shine anything Satan tries to distract them with, and that they each will become edge-of-the-sword spiritual warriors for Christ, pushing back the lines of darkness and ushering in the end-time great harvest through their great love and passion for Him! Amen.
Alabastersky 