God's Whisperings by Paul Camuti

About one week ago I posted a Restoration video, Joy Comes In The Morning. I mentioned that on Easter/Resurrection Sunday morning that the Lord spoke to my heart. Before I get into what the Lord said, this is not going to be a message on what the Lord spoke to my heart when I first woke up. I'm using what He spoke to my heart for the video to set up the another message the Lord spoke to my heart later that same morning.

What the Lord spoke to me as soon as I opened my eyes from sleep on Easter/Resurrection Sunday morning was to think about what a dark season of pain and agony this was for those who followed Jesus. Peter denied Jesus three times. A man who said he would stay by Jesus side & fight to the death for Him. Jesus, whom Peter followed for at least three years, hearing Him preach and teach, seeing all the miracles, the healings, believing Jesus was the Messiah who would free them from the tyranny of Rome and the false religious system. We know that after Peter denied Jesus, he ran away and wept bitterly. Think of the pain and agony of Mary, Jesus earthly mother. He said to think of the pain and agony of the other disciples who experienced Jesus as Peter did. They all denied Him. The Lord spoke to also think about the people of Israel who did believe He was the Messiah, and how the agony and pain they suffered as they watched Jesus die on the cross. To make a long story short, the point of the message of the video was that no matter how dark the darkest seasons of our soul experience, when it seems all hope is lost, the promise to us as we look to Him and praise and worship Him despite the dark season of the soul, joy comes in the morning, as it were, and the joy of the Lord is our strength. It comes by virtue of that same Resurrection Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwelling within us. If you have already watched it, I would encourage you to watch it again. If you haven't watched it, I would encourage you to watch it, even if you're not going through a dark season of the soul. Just look up Restoration: Joy Comes In The Morning, on YouTube.

As I mentioned, there was something else the Lord spoke on my heart Easter/Resurrection Sunday. Before I get into what the Lord spoke, I want to make it clear, I am not a legalist. Generally speaking, I do not judge people by what they look like or how they dress. The posture of my heart is, that's between them and God. However, the flip side of that coin is, Jesus said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits...(Matthew 7:16a).” The context of course is Jesus warning about false teachers/prophets. However, it is a principle that applies at many levels. Jesus also said, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” How do we judge righteous judgment? By what the Word of God says and by what the Holy Spirit reveals. If we are judging by our emotions only based on what we are feeling or seeing it is likely not going to be a righteous judgment. If we find ourselves offended at something, we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, “Why am I offended.” We need to examine our own hearts, and also allow the Holy Spirit to examine and reveal to us the reason for our offence. As I once heard a minister say, “God will offend the mind to reveal the heart.” We have to recognize that sometimes it is God who is the one offending our minds so He can reveal our hearts to get us to a place of allowing Him to purify our hearts.

That being said, when Deborah, myself and our friend, Monica arrived at church that Easter/Resurrection Sunday, the place was packed. The first service was going on, and we were on line for the 11 a.m. service. As we were waiting on line in the foyer, The Lord drew my attention to the crowd of people. Normally in such a situation, I am not looking at the people on the line, or people buzzing back and forth for whatever reason. My mind is on waiting, hoping that soon the line will get moving so that we can sit down, and once situated join in with worshipping and praising the Lord, enjoying His Presence. The Lord, though, had a reason for my attention to be on the people.Like I said earlier, I do not typically judge people by the outward appearance. However, I began to notice that many people were not only dressed in casual attire, but many were wearing jeans, some with wholes, t-shirts, and the kind of clothes you just wear after work on over the weekend. Many of women who were dressed, were wearing very short skirts. By short I mean the end of the skirt was above the thigh. I did not keep looking. I'd turn away and then would see other women similarly dressed.

The Holy Spirit then had me reflect to the time when I was growing up, and even in my teens, when people went to church they were all dressed up. Guys wore suits, girls/women wore dresses of all shapes and sizes, but definitely not above the thigh. This was on any given Sunday. And it was especially so on Easter Sunday. Back in the day, I'm sure many people were dressing this way out of a legalistic mentality, meaning, “I better dress nice for church or else God will be mad at me...” or to feel more religious or spiritual than anyone else. However, many people dressed in such a manner out of a desire to give honor and respect to the Lord.The Holy Spirit then spoke to my heart, “Where is the reverence?” As soon as the Lord spoke that to me, He immediately brought to my remembrance of a hot summer evening in which I was with the church evangelism team when we went to a baseball stadium. We were passing out tracts and talking to people. We were carrying signs. The sign I carried was white with bold black lettering that said, “America, Turn to Jesus, He Loves You.”When the game was about to start, all the hustle bustle, all the chatting, all the noise grew silent to get ready to sing the national anthem. Everyone in the stadium rose. Most had their hands over their hearts. Anyone wearing a hat, took their hats off. It was amazing how still, how reverent that moment was. The Lord at that time spoke to my heart and said, “If only they would reverence Me, the way the reverence the national anthem.”

When revival broke out in the mid 1990's, particularly in Toronto, Canada and Pensacola, Florida, over time more and more congregations, even on Sundays, people began to dress more casually to services. I remember in our church I was one of the last ones to stop wearing a suit to church on Sunday. It was a good thing, because during that revival one of the main things about it was for people to get free from legalistic thought and behavior patterns. Very subtilty , though, it got to a point that many of us who became free from legalistic behaviors and thought patterns at times began to judge people who wore suits as being legalistic. That may have been true in some, if not many cases. However, it became a situation where those of us who were “free” just went from one ditch in the road to another.God is not being critical here. I'm not being critical here. But is it possible that in our desire and effort to be free that we not only became casual in our dress, but that our casual dress became an outward manifestation or our relationship with God becoming casual? I am simply trying to say, is God trying to get our attention? Is He trying to get us to examine our hearts before Him and with His Holy Spirit to see if our relationship has gotten to casual individually, locally, and nation wide.I am not saying any of this with a critical or judgmental spirit. If we are desiring so much for revival to hit our churches and our nation, it behooves us to examine our hearts. I am not making a clarion call for everyone to be dressed up on Sundays or any service for that matter. What I am saying is that each of us need to examine our hearts and ask God what He desires us to do. I believe one of the main components of the revival that is breaking out, is that God is going to make clear that it is time to serve God on His terms, not on our terms.

Ye shall keep My sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary; I am The Lord. Leviticus 19:30

Ye shall keep My sabbaths, and reverence My sanctuary; I am the Lord. Leviticus 26:2

When God says the same thing twice, it is emphatic. The children of Israel were told to reverence His sanctuary. We are to reverence His place of worship, because that is where His Presence is. If this was true for the Old Covenant Church, how much more is it true for the New Covenant Church. Especially since His Presence is also within us?The Hebrew word for reverence has a variety of meaning. However the meanings are based on context. Clearly, the context here would give reverence to the definition of, to stand in awe, to honor, to respect.

God is to be greatly feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him. Psalm 89:7

The word feared in this verse in the Hebrew is aras, which means to tremble, to dread, to regard or treat with awe, to inspire awe. The Bible says the God is love. God is truly the personification of love. I turned to God when I had an encounter with the love of God, not with the fear of going to hell. However, in American Christianity, our viewpoint of God being love at times diminishes as to how we see who He is as God.I'll never forget a service in which our church had a new building built. We had a dedication celebration the entire weekend before Memorial Day. Pastors John and Carol Arnott from Toronto were the guest speakers of the dedication service. Instead of speaking, they felt the Holy Spirit wanted them to pray for people. I was standing toward the back of the sanctuary. Not only were all of our church congregation was there, but people from churches throughout the Tulsa area were present as well. The sanctuary could seat 300 people. There was standing room only.

Pastor John Arnott placed his hand on one person's head. He barely got the prayer out of his mouth when God stepped into the building. It was like an atomic blast. People literally flew backwards. It wasn't emotion. It was the power of God like I had never seen it before. People flew in every direction. Some crashed into the walls, but no one was injured. Some flew backwards over the backs of their chairs. I saw this with my own eyes. I thought to myself, “Do we realize who we are dealing with? If God decided to show up in all His glory, all of us and this building would be incinerated. We'd be nothing but a heap of ashes.” When that thought hit me, I trembled throughout my entire body. Yes, God is love. Him sending His Son to take upon Himself our sins so that we could be in relationship with the Father is proof enough of God's love. However, we are diminishing His awe and wonder when we only focus on the attribute of God's love.

I once had a dream that I was standing before God with a relative of mine who was near death at that time. I remember in the dream, myself and my relative falling prostrate before God on His throne. As I lay on my face, I trembled uncontrollably and said, “We are before the Lord God. He is awesome, He is all powerful, He is great, He is terrible...” And then the Lord spoke and said, “Yes, but I am also merciful.” Although He said He is merciful, when I woke up, I woke my wife Deborah and told her the dream. As I told her the dream, even though God said He is merciful, I trembled uncontrollably as I did in the dream. When I shared this dream with my pastor and his wife the next day in pastor's office, again I trembled uncontrollably as in the dream. They were across the room from me, and they could feel the intensity. Remember, I turned to God having encountered His love. But we also have to be in awe of Him to the enth degree. Once again the word reverence is the same Hebrew word mentioned in Leviticus 19:30 and Leviticus 26:2. Also note that in Psalm 89:7 that it says that He is to be had in reverence by all His saints that are round about Him. This is speaking about the people of the congregation. We are to have awe, honor and respect of Him.

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? Hebrews 12:9

The Greek Word for reverence is entrepo which means to give regard, to respect, give reverence. If we are to give regard, respect, reverence to our earthly fathers, as we should, or even to other men and women of some kind of authority, how much more should we give it to God?

Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

For our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29

God never intended our relationship with Him to be marked by do's and don'ts. He always desired a love relationship with us where our heart posture towards would be to love Him and serve Him out of wanting to love and serve Him. Just as His love motivation was out of want to and not because He had to. Although this is true, we still need to realize that He is God, and there also needs to be a regard of awe, honor and reverence toward Him. It is amazing what God will say when He whispers.

Love and God bless, Pastor Paul.

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