THE Gift This Season!

 The Holy Spirit is what's for Christmas this year.  That is what I'm getting, and God willing giving, from God. . . .

Everyone I know, who I've come across, who are in my day-to-day work-a-day world, acquaintances, neighbors, family, et al, are having an especially rough "Christmas" and in general, time at this time.

Old friends and family are lately dead or dying right now, people are struggling in all kinds of ways.

The Holy Spirit has been--through this season, and is even today--threshing me to the core.  It's kind of like "the great dressing down 2.0", "born again, AGAIN!"

There is no time for vain trivialities, baubles, distractions, false hopes, temporal fear, worldly anxieties, self-seeking, whining, complaining, ingratitude, hardness of heart, tradition, riding the fence/being lukewarm. . . . 

No. There is not time for that.

All there is . . . is to let all go that is not of and for God.  The end is nigh.

In Heaven, there IS NO END to the wonder, the awe, the love of God--walking personally with The Lord in His perfect Kingdom . . . where the trees bend and sing with the saints and the grass is vibrantly aware and also in the praise and worship of The Lord.  The flowers dance, the rocks adore, along with the saved, singing, praising, joyful . . . unending, in holy adoration and wonder and experience of the glory of God.  

THERE will be ALL that you ever craved, longed for, hoped for, imagined (that is good and lovely and beautiful and God-centered) is realized and found--the gift of gifts! . . . is awaiting . . . in Heaven

When the Spirit calls and reels you in--when the Fisherman hauls you in . . . . . . When the angels are out and about dropping off quick, terse (yet blessedly direct) messages . . . . When the call to discipleship is real, up-close and personal . . . . . When you know time is short and the reaper is prowling, coming to steal you away to shunt you down to Sheol to be tormented by the devil and his demons. . . . When the Holy Spirit is here to burn away all the rest of the dross you've yet been clutching like a fool . . . .  Know that that THIS is the time!  NOW is the day of salvation!

The separation is getting stark, hard . . . praise God!  The clarity of the difference between one or the other of THE ONLY TWO WAYS TO GO is being shouted from the Holy rooftops and watchtowers!

While material concerns and worries and wants and needs increase amidst the increasingly ubiquitous wicked tyranny--AS ALWAYS, where evil abounds, THE LORD ABOUNDS ALL THE MORE!  The darker it gets world-wise and interpersonally . . . the MORE HIS GLORY is found and shown and imbibable, because He will not, and does not leave us bereft of His presence and hope!  Even within the worst of raging storms, tempests and attacks and infiltrations, subterfuge, worldly stresses and pressures; "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Strive, yearn, love, press toward God, and His Spirit will respond! That is what He wants!  He wants and grants that you may love and desire Him as He does you!  

In this murky, "through a glass darkly world" it does take effort, and patience in time, and pushing through . . . and He will sometimes make you wait, to test your sincere, desperate faith . . . wandering in the desert, or adrift in roiling seas . . . BUT THEN, you will see a light, like a far off lighthouse--faint, but twinkling light--and then it may dim or disappear amidst new high waves, darkness, sudden raging black cold showers . . . . BUT THEN, pressing onward, faithful face set against the enemy onslaught, you see, joyfully the light is closer, warmer! . . . . 

You keep focused on the light--it guides your course and you don't now dare take your eyes from it. . . .  Then it is showing nearer, brighter--obviously real, not a mirage!  It is on A ROCK!  There is a true, solid, safe haven!  AND you're finding yourself still drawing in to that shore, that long sought safe harbor, as you continue focus and pull ever nearer, crying out against the angry opposing gales--YES! you're being pulled inward by a force and power and will that supersedes all surrounding tempests combined!

The gift of the Holy Spirit this Christmas, this season . . . is greater than any gift being given in the world today.