Mark 8:34 Then Jesus called the crowd, along with his disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”

Years ago, I was thinking about the old saying “feed a cold, starve a fever” and instantly the Holy Spirit quickened “starve your soul, feed your Spirit”. My struggles then were many at that point in my life, yet I had this desire to follow the Lord in a real way. There were many choices to make back then that would later determine a new spiritual course for my life. The Lord was waiting for me to deny myself some relationships that were not His best for me. I knew that I could go no further with Him until I carefully placed these on the altar of self-sacrifice. Once I did, He filled that void with new relationships that He had chosen for me. The Lord said, “I am teaching you to guard your heart so that it becomes a safe place for our lives to become one. Over time as you follow my promptings and deny yourself the right to choose, your soul will become a quite place, still enough that you can sense the slightest move of My spirit, quiet enough that you can hear a whisper from the throne”

The seeds that God plants grow in the soil of our situation that He has carefully prepared. Some of them will bear fruit during our natural lifetime but the vast majority are for the age to come. Now we are to build an “Ark of Relationship” that will allow us to ride on top of the waters of judgement that are surely coming to this world system. Most will not understand our devotion and preparation until the rains of end time events begin to fall.

Matthew 24:37-39 “For it will be exactly like it was in the days of Noah when the Son of Man appears. Before the flood, people lived their lives eating, drinking, marrying, and having children. They didn’t realize the end was near until Noah entered the ark, and then suddenly, the flood came and took them all away in judgment. It will happen the same way when the Son of Man appears”