FROM ASHES TO GLORY
Patsy Shelton
Nov 19, 2003


From Ashes to Glory
Jasminka Diehl


For some time now, many of us have been going through the INTENSE purging, through this "wilderness" experience, where the heat is almost unbearable. The winds have risen up and have stirred all kinds of things, the loneliness and heartbreak are our companions.

Some of us have built the strongholds all around us. I speak this from my very own experience, but I do know that I am not the only one, but am just one of many that God is bringing through, at this time.

There are walls all around us from all emotional hurts. Rejections and heart pains have taught us how to fortify our hearts, to protect and guard it against all that would come our way. We have made ourselves strong by building the wall with our own hands, and every time we went through the suffering and heart pains, the wall became bigger and stronger.

But that strength was made within us rather than allowing God to be that strength in our weakness ...

So the time has come, and He is tearing down all those defenses and walls we have carefully built with our own hands. The time has come to reveal all our life wounds and scars, to become completely open and vulnerable to God.

VERY PAINFUL EXPERIENCE!!!

But out of those ashes of the broken humanity there is the new spirit arising, totally and completely belonging to God, being devoted only to Him, and following Him wherever He may lead ...

Maturity has a PRICE - it costs us all. All of our will, and all of our flesh will have to be consumed in His fire, so that the holiness will become the NORM of our living, and

Jesus Christ will become truly the one and only living within us. That way it will not be just the words we talk about, the scripture we have learned to quote, but our very own life will become the Gospel, walking in the WAY of the Lord. For Jesus is THE WAY!


I know that I am not alone in these things I am experiencing. God is tearing down our walls, and through the tears of repentance and our heartbreaks, the NEW us is rising up, from the ashes of old we are being formed to His liking.

The fire of holiness is raging, the winds of change are blowing, gathering the ashes as the offering, so that the new man is being formed, and the Glory of God will be able to reside and fill that temple. The Body of Christ will truly become His Body, the Holy Temple, the true Bride.

There is the time and the place in God, where each one of us will have to "expose" ourselves, unlock, and open up all the hidden passage ways that lead to the CENTER of our heart, so that the healing waters can flow, and the restoration can take place.

For how can we help and restore others if we are in need of restoration ourselves?

God knows what He is doing, He is in ultimate control ... Belonging to Him we are not our own anymore, and He WILL accomplish all that needs to be accomplished.

Heart breaks will come, the pain and suffering, the loneliness and hardships too. But all those are just tools, used to help us being shaped into the true sons and daughters of God. For out of the broken heart the true compassion will flow ..

Out of the broken humanity the holy nation will arise, and their destiny and their purpose will finally take place. We will be called the PURE and HOLY, as we reveal God's Glory to all the people on the earth.

So let God's fire rage and consume, let the winds of change blow. For upon the ashes of old the former and the latter rain will fall, the power of the Holy Spirit will once again raise the dead out of the tomb and confines of this flesh, and we will shine, clothed in the very Glory of our God.


Jasminka