I'm sure that most (if not all) of us can relate to the word "frustration". I personally have been going through some major frustrations both in the natural and the spiritual realms. It's been a very interesting and informative time as the Lord has been speaking to me about the correlation between the realm of the natural and the realm of the spiritual.

1 Cor. 15:46 - The spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.

After realizing how frustrated I had been with my physical condition, I went to the Lord for answers. He began to reveal to me that what I was experiencing in the natural correlated with what I was experiencing in the realm of the spirit. I was frustrated with my physical condition (the pain in my body and insomnia), and I was frustrated with my spiritual walk with the Lord because I knew that there was (and is) so much more of God that I was not tapping into. I knew that there was (and is) so much more revelation in His word and IN HIM that I am not yet understanding. So I found myself frustrated with not understanding or knowing how to tap into that which God still had for me.

Many of you reading this newsletter today can relate to what I've been going through. Some of you are experiencing physical pain in your body and would like to know why you are not yet healed. Others of you are frustrated spiritually because you are not where you know you should be in God.

Instead of continually allowing the frustration to drive us away from God, we need to allow the frustration to draw us closer to God. God has been speaking to us for a long time. He has been trying to get our attention, but we have not been listening or obeying Him. Many of us have felt the tugging of the Holy Spirit to spend more time with the Lord in prayer, intercession and soaking in His holy presence, yet we have not fully obeyed the promptings of His Spirit. This has caused much, if not most, of the frustration that we have been feeling.

I believe we are in a season where God wants to reveal HIMSELF to us in some pretty awesome ways. If we are too preoccupied with other things (whatever those things might be), we will miss out on this revelation knowledge.

The revelation that God desires to give us regarding Himself is not going to come by reading books or visiting with the head intercessor of our church. (Yes, there are things that we can learn from books and from others, but God is doing a new thing.) He wants us to come directly to Him so that we can learn of Him and be taught by Him. There are things that God wants to speak directly to us.

We don't always have to be running to the Pastors or the Prophets in order to receive a word from God. God wants us to come to Him so that He can speak directly to us and reveal Himself to us in a more intimate way.

The church has been guilty of seeking after knowledge, the deep things of God, and revelation instead of seeking God Himself. I believe this is where a lot of our frustration has originated.

The Lord wants us to seek Him first and when we obey His instruction to do this, I believe everything else will fall into its proper place. Revelation will come as we seek the Lord and have a greater desire to know Him. Revelation comes from God.

We do not know the Lord as we ought to know Him. How do I know this? I know this because the Lord spoke to me a few months ago and said, "Donna, you don't know Me as you ought to know Me. For if you really knew Me, you would be doing exploits for Me." Wow! Talk about a shocking statement. As I meditated on what God had spoken to me, I realized how right He really was and I began to have a strong desire to know God in a deeper more intimate way.

As we get to know God more, He will be able to reveal Himself to us and release more revelation to us.

The Apostle Paul was a great man of God who wrote most of the New Testament and probably had more revelation knowledge of who God was than any other man alive at that time, and yet, in Philippians 3:10, we hear the real cry of Paul's heart, the cry to KNOW GOD in a way that he did not yet know Him.

Is that cry to know God in your heart today? If not, it needs to be.

Let's go back for a minute to the word "frustration".

Frustrate means to prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; to thwart; to cause feelings of discouragement or bafflement; to make ineffectual or invalid; to nullify; to disappoint.

Now, how many of you are or have been frustrated?

The enemy does not want us accomplishing God's purposes for our lives. He does not want us to fulfill the desires that God has placed in our hearts. He wants to abort those desires and purposes so that we will never fulfill our destiny in God.

We must not allow the enemy to win regarding this issue. We must wake up, stand up and obey God.

When the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray, we must obey His promptings immediately. When the Holy Spirit gives us instruction regarding that which we should be doing for Him, we must immediately obey Him.

Many in the body of Christ are living in sin and following after the desires of the flesh instead of living and abiding in the Spirit. We will never be able to please God by operating out of our carnal flesh nature. He wants us to learn how to be partakers of His divine nature, living without sin and being led by His Spirit.

1 John 3:4-6 - Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and IN HIM there is NO SIN. Whoever abides IN HIM does NOT sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor KNOWN Him.

This Scripture is powerful. If we sin, it shows that we do not know God.

There is a place IN GOD (in Him) where we can live (abide); a place where there is NO sin.

We are not sinners saved by grace. We are saints who have been saved by grace through faith. If we are sinners or calling ourselves sinners, it shows that we do not yet know or understand who God is. God didn't save us so that we would continue living in sin. He paid a great price when He was crucified on the cross at Calvary. He redeemed us FROM sin. He became sin for us so that we could live righteous lives before Him.

1 John 2:6 - He who says he abides IN HIM ought himself also to walk just as He (Jesus) walked.

What is this verse saying? It's saying that God has made a way for us to walk just as Jesus walked, living a life without sin.

1 John 5:18 - We know that whoever is born of God DOES NOT SIN; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.

There is a place IN GOD that I so desire to walk in, abide in, and live in.

We have fallen so short of where we need to be IN CHRIST and I believe that many in the body of Christ have now come to a place in their walk with God where He is drawing them nearer to Himself, drawing them more INTO Himself so that they can KNOW Him in a deeper more intimate way.

I believe we are living in an awesome time and God wants to reveal Himself to His body and take us into dimensions of His Spirit where we have never been before. Revelation is being released to God's people more and more as they draw closer to Him and spend more time with Him in prayer. As we learn to get past the outer court of always asking God for things and learn to draw nigh to Him in the inner court where we long to have that personal relationship with Him, we will find ourselves coming into that place of intimacy with Him to such a degree that prayers will no longer need to be spoken because everything that we need is IN HIM, in the Most Holy Place. No flesh operates in the Most Holy Place. No prayers are prayed in this place. The Spirit of God dwells in the Most Holy Place and it's in this place that we will truly begin to KNOW Him and become more like Him.

May God put a hunger and thirst in all of us to KNOW HIM for who He really is and may we be drawn from the outer court to the inner court where we can be changed by His manifest presence.