This past week God has really called me back to intimate prayer with Him.  It was not to pick up praying for people but to pick up praying to be touched and changed by His Presence and to know Him more intimately.  He spoke to me about picking up your appetite for Him and His Church returning to their first love.   I died daily to my plans and my will and laid some things to rest this past week in prayer.  I believe as Christians it is very important in this hour to Guard our Heart as our most precious possession and as John the Beloved said, "Keep Ourselves".  John, the beloved, the disciple whom the Lord loved, closed out his letter in 3rd John by Saying, "Little Children, Keep Yourselves from Idols".  The Amplified Bible says, from anything and everything that occupies the place in your heart that is due unto Christ.  We are a product of who is sitting on the throne of our heart.  God has been speaking to me about seeking His Presence and His Will first each and every day.  This Hunger and Desperation for Him is a Spiritual First Thing.  In prayer and weeping this past week, I experienced a great freedom as I recommitted my heart to "Delight To Do His Will".  As believers, we are not to be anchored to stuff (a place, a home, new car, people, job) but God reminded me my anchor is in Jesus Christ and to His Will for my life.  We like to think and believe that we are not but many times like Saul we too hide behind the stuff when God is pulling on our heart to spend more time with Him. 

David Said, I delight to do His Will.  This and this alone brings true freedom and joy to our life.  This is the place where His Voice once again becomes clear, His Will once again begins to flow, and the anointing increases in our life.   Praise the Lord for His Mercy and Long Suffering.  I heard someone say once that God's Long Suffering with us is best described as "He is Patient with us for our God Purpose".  Thank God.

 The devil is a master at getting us caught up in the routines and mechanics of all aspects of life, things like work, marriage, and family.  His goal is deceptive and he is not content until we have little by little walked away from our first love.  And the things that once moved us to tears now no longer bothers us.  The things that were precious and valuable to us have now become God forbid too common and too familiar.  I want to insert a quote by Max Lucado on "Satan's Sliest Agents - The Agent of Familiarity".

"His commission from the black throne room is clean and fatal, take nothing from your victim cause him only to take everything for granted.  His aim is deadly and is his goal is nothing less than to take what is most precious to us and make it appear common.  He want steal your salvation - he will just make you forget what it was like to be lost.  You will grow accustomed to prayer and thereby not pray.  Worship will become commonplace and study will be optional.  With the passing of time he will infiltrate your heart with boredom and cover the cross with dust so you will be safely out of reach of change.  Nor will he steal your home from you, he will do something far worse.  He will paint it with a coat of drabness.  He won't take your children, he will just make you too busy to notice them.  His whispers to procrastinate are seductive.  Hence, our life will not change, relationships will not be restored, and opportunities will go unnoticed.  All because the poison of the ordinary has deadened your senses to the magic of the moment."

Let's Pick Up our Appetite for God and give the enemy no place!