Thanks to all for your love, support and especially prayer during Cheryl's open heart surgery and recovery over the past week and a half. Cheryl is making good progress each day and I feel she is getting stronger as well! Our church family and friends have been amazing in their support by providing meals for us during this stretch. The meals have all been very healthy, low salt and low sugar and all very delicious. Thanks to Mya Frey for setting this meal train up. Cheryl's first post-op check up with the cardiologist will be this Thursday. Please keep us in prayer for that. She is recovering despite me being her main nurse and care giver but I'm doing my best. I received the following from one of our Cornerstone satellite leaders, Karen Austin last night. It was very encouraging to us so I wanted to encourage you with it especially as we move into a new season...
"I have been pondering this for a few days. Love is your and Cheryl's shield. It is the very heart of the Father that you capturing in a deeper degree. Love enabled you to bypass the plans of the enemy, whose attempt was to take out the life of Cornerstone. But love was your shield. It has flushed out the undercurrent that has been there for years. I felt I was also addressing it the day I ministered. I could sense it under the floor.
There has been pain in the bypass process, just as Cheryl has experienced pain with her physical bypass. But your hearts have been untouched by the attacks. I see your hearts as "virgin" hearts.
A crossing over has taken place. There are still giants to face, but you now have an army you can trust...ones who have been tried. Their hearts have been circumcised.
"For love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity."
Colossians 3:14 TPT "
Karen Austin; Cornerstone West
Thank you Karen! This is just one of the encouraging words that we have received over the last couple of weeks. They are “spiritual food” for us as we ponder and meditate upon them.
Another word that came during our ZOOM prayer meeting from last Wednesday evening was the need for the Lord to expose anything in our hearts and lives which needed to be removed. This was from Tamar Clarke.
Anyone who did not humble themselves and repent of what the Lord showed them would be “bypassed” in tis next season and deemed useless to the Lord. This seems to be the bar set by Luke in Acts 3:17-21 (ESV).
“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago”.
Since surgery, Cheryl has been getting used to a fully functioning heart. New feelings and sensations need to be adjusted too. A new diet and health regimen is the order of the day to keep heart heart healthy. We can live with a diseased heart for years and not even know it. We get used to an appetite of things that are actually bad for our heart. Although heart issue tend to run in families, we can exacerbate heart disease by an unhealthy diet and little exercise. Than, we get used to its partial function and think it’s normal. We have no idea that it will eventually kill us if intervention does not happen. Many men die of heart attacks because they ignore the signs and “tough it out”. Women’s symptoms are completely different than mens and many have no idea what to look for. The Lord gave us a wonderful cardiologist who did not ignore the signs in Cheryl. So in the physical, so is the spiritual. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful physician. We can ask Him and He will show us. We can have a diseased heart and not even know it. It can be full of self-righteousness and pride which ultimately leads to spiritual death. What God allowed in the old season will not be allowed in the new season. Why? Because we must carry His heart and affection for both one another and the lost. All the old appetites like judgment, criticism, jealously and self-ambition must go. I love what The Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:1-6 (ESV)…
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
King David was asking the Lord to do heart surgery in Psalm 51:10-12 (ESV) so he would be both ready and available to be used of God. May we have the same heart attitude as he did.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.