A real winter?!

This is unbelievably my first entry of the year 2009! Not that there's nothing to say, but my focus is elsewhere. The computer is just my email device at present, not my creative outlet. This morning the outside temp was 27 degrees F. Up where my father lives in Havana, Florida, 12 miles north of Tallahassee, it was only 14 degrees! As I ceremoniously raised the window shades around the house, I observed the robins, puffed up in their effort to insulate themselves from the cold. They were trying to get a drink from frozen bird baths, pond, and any upward facing crevice that retains rainwater. The sun is out...no clouds to speak of, but I will be surprised if the predicted high of 52 is ever actually reached. I'm sorry for all those who suffer really cold weather and for a longer, sustained season. This is an oddity for us in Florida, but the plants that normally enjoy and depend on balmier climate do not survive this kind of weather. Hibiscus is probably the only plant that will come back. Probably our larger trees, too. Anyway, we're getting a more realistic taste of winter.
I'm so glad that my last blog entry is still true! God is faithful, never changing...no shadow of turning....mercies new every morning! When all is changing around us, we are held fast in His hands. I am engaged in several studies right now...all begun at different times, worked on at different paces, all focusing on different approaches....but the hoped for end is first-hand, up close, personal knowledge of God....a new revelation, vision, understanding that will change me. II Cor. 3:18 I'm reading and working with Experiencing His Presence by Tommy Tenney, actually a devotional companion to The God Catchers, same author. I'm also reading and working with I Saw The Lord, by Anne Graham Lotz, book and companion workbook. We have a small study group that participates in this study once a week. I am also reading and re-reading Rick Joyner's book, The Final Quest, in which he relates the series of visions he received concerning the Church in the end-times stuggles(actually that word is too mild....should be warfare). This Church is not the organized, politicized, and secularly infiltrated and pasteurized church, but the Body of true believers, the Bride of Christ, that will be warring against the enemies of God in the last days. Anyway, these all work together to create in the reader/student the ever increasing desire to KNOW God, to know as we are known of Him. ICor. 13:12 Paul cried..."that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death!" Philippians 3:10 David declared God's intimate knowledge of us, His inescapable presence...."whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?....."Psalm 139:1-12 God is ever, all, everywhere present and available to hearts that are looking, watching, waiting, longing, calling to Him. He has been doing the same to us for as long as humanity has walked the planet. Remember the story Jesus told of the father who ran to meet his returning prodigal son? Or the shepherd who leaves his flock and searches for the lost sheep? Jeremiah declares that God has loved us with an everlasting love and in lovingkindness He draws us, reaches out to us. Jeremiah 31:3 Jesus said, Come to me. Matt. 11:28 Come and drink. John 7:37 Come and eat. John 21:12 Come and rest. Matt.11:28 Isaiah recorded God's plea to all..."Come and let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as wool. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as snow!" Isa. 1:18 Anyone who believes that God is unavailable, aloof, unapproachable, not concerned with us and our needs only has to look at Jesus. He is God. Isa. 9:6, John 1:1 Paul said that in Him was the fullness of God.Col. 2:9 He was in the beginning...nothing was created that wasn't created by Him.John 1:3 He is the Light that lights everyone born into this world.John 1:9 He is called Immanuel...God with us. Isa. 7:14 Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows, He was the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief....HE was wounded for our transgressions, BRUISED for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was ON HIM, and by HIS stripes we are healed. Isa. 53:5 HE took our grief, our sickness, our sorrow, our sin and it's punishment upon Himself...FOR US! God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and salvation.....(life in Him and with Him forever).IIPet.3:9 What reason holds you back from coming to such an Almighty One Who loves and calls to you to come? David said, "O taste and see that the Lord is good!" Psalm 34:8 I hope and pray that you do. God bless. Keep warm.