United We Stand

This Art Reflection was presented at the Gathering House Church in Spokane Washington 

on March 24th, 2019. You can purchase a copy of the art work at 

https://jnesbit.com/products/desire-of-the-nations

https://jnesbit.com/products/desire-of-the-nations

Desire of the Nations by James Nesbitt
Art Reflection by Margot Cioccio and Gerri Wright


The Lion is Jesus. He is our risen Lord. He walks triumphant through the heavenly sanctuary, in the midst of the rainbow of his promises. The nations are under his feet. He strides upon the water of life that flows out from his heavenly presence. See the sunrise in the distance and the universe above—they remind us that now and on into eternity, more than we can think, ask, or imagine awaits us.
This is what the Lord Almighty says in Haggai 2:6 “I will shake the nations, the desired of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with my glory.” Habbakkuk 2:14 says, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Lord, we need your revelation to help us understand that we are seated with you NOW in the heavenly places. But oh, how that stretches our mortal mind. The idea that in every moment we are here, but also there [in the heavenly realm] with you. Help us understand that you have called us out of darkness into partnership to rule and reign as your prophets, priests, and kings in the earth not only someday but now.
Yet we are so inadequate, so poor, so broken. Holy Spirit remind us to turn our focus and look on our Beloved. Look at him. He is our Lion, our King triumphant!

He says in Psalm 2 verse 8 “Ask of me and I shall give you the nations as your inheritance.” But do we even get that far in the smallness of our thinking? We are so often embroiled in the daily trials of our own life. We want more of him and more of him means more of his heart for others.
My king is coming! Will he find asleep on my couch, the tv blaring and enticing me with endless entertainment that only leaves me empty? Have I become numb and desensitized when life has been easy? Do I only seek him as my last resort when all my good ideas have been tried and have failed? Do I come to him? Do I come to him at all?

The banner over his house is love and those who find true wisdom obtain the tools for understanding and living. For they have a fountain of his blessing pouring into their lives. Feed us Jesus from the tree of life found in you. Allow the living water that flows from your heavenly sanctuary to satisfy our thirst. Oh, how we thirst for you. Will we wake up our mind? Will we say until the darkness disappears and the dawn has fully come, in spite of shadows and fears, that we will go to the mountaintop with you? Will we join you on the mountain of suffering love, and the lonely hills of prayer that burn before you like fragrant incense?

We are united in his love. We love him because he first loved us. Yet we let so much get in the way of that love relationship: worry, fear, doubt, sickness, calamity, religion, envy, pride, poverty, hopelessness, inadequacy, lack…the list goes on and on. These are the chains he comes to break us free from. He gives us his word that we should wield it like a mighty sword to cut through the endless hissing of the enemy that holds us hostage in these chains and cages built of half-truths and lies.
Can you hear him saying, “Come with me through the blue and purple archway of trust? Together we will wage war on the one who spreads these lies, the one who holds my people in every nation captive. Let us stand united as one to make war on the enemy and set the captives free.

Moving from You and Me to Us

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

John 17:22-23 (NIV1984)

²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:²³ I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

This video is of a song that I feel is a powerful example of lone voices becoming one people and one voice. I believe it is what God would do with as his people if we could lay aside the drive to stand out and choose to stand together.

Tonight I experienced something wonderful and profound. I was invited to be part of a musical team that gathered to work on music for and up coming service. In the past 30 years I have worked with some excellent worship leaders and I mean none of them any disrespect. The model I have seen most often is there is a leader and the leader pretty much makes all the decisions and everyone else supports the leader. Tonight was special because we were not held captive to that model. We moved from you, and you and me and profoundly became an us. We each brought our strengths and our weakness to the table. Together we brought out the best in each other. There was an atmosphere of I believe in you, and wow that was wonderful.

It is much easier to do things on your own. There are not scheduling hastles. No one to have a different idea about what should be done. It is much harder to work as a collective whole, as and us. In and "us" I am not the in the spot light, and neither are you. What is in the spot light is the glorious whole, the sum of the parts joining together in unity. Unity is a powerful thing. 

Psalm 133 says "

¹ How good and pleasant it is
    when brothers live together in unity!
² It is like precious oil poured on the head,
    running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
    down upon the collar of his robes.
³ It is as if the dew of Hermon
    were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
    even life forevermore.

Did you see these words "For there the Lord bestows his blessing," They leap off the page at me. Where does the Lord bestow his blessing? When we live and work together in unity.

We need to move from trying to create celebraties to creating communities. When we can lay aside our own agenda and allow the Lord to lead and direct us together - something powerful happens. 
You and I were once just living stones but the Lord builds us together into a spiritual house. 

I have a friend and we have agreed to encourage one another. We are both far from perfect but we have decide to see the good in each other. To point out the positive. It is easy to pick and criticize. It is easy to tear down what is different and what you don't understand. It takes the eyes of the Spirit to see beyond the flaws and scars into the heart of who God destined and created another to be. They may not have fully arrived at there final destination but we can celebrate and fan into flame the glowing embers of the gifts that God has placed in another. We can breathe life on those flames and they will burn brighter. We can move together and the collective coals and embers become a fire. To be unified we don't have to be exactly alike. It is in bringing out the best in each other that we become a unified collective  - we become something that we could not have been before. That harmony may only be created in that moment but I believe that God is where God bestows his blessing.

So tonight we worked on creating something beautiful and uniquely wonderful together. We were not trying to do things the way others were successfully doing things. We were discovering together what God could do with us if we could lay down our pride and our agenda and work as one. 
I saw love and unity in action - it is a beautiful thing.  I hope and pray that what I experienced is a releasing of a new wave of Gods Spirit in worship through unity. Where what defines this type of worship is not a leader or a celebrity but the power of a collective group listening and following the Holy Spirit together to create something that could not be created except that the individual parts became united and become something new, unique, wonderful and profound. 

I think this applies to far more than music. It is easy to divide and tear down, to run away, to build wall that keep us separated. It is when we get tired of doing things alone that we begin to venture out from our fortress walls and you venture out from behind yours that we realize we could try to walk together in love. We could look for what ever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

Prayer:  
Lord help us to see places where we could begin to move beyond you, you, you and me and become a collective us. I pray that as we begin to develop little united circles that you would not let us become closed but to welcome in another and another in to the great dance of of your awesomeness.