“You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.” ― Eric Liddell, The Disciplines Of The Christian Life How did this country get so far from God? By playing with the enemy's toys. We all have a hole in us only Jesus can fill, but we try to fill it with all kinds of other things, even spiritual things, but if it's not the spirit of God, then you are putting another God/idol before Him. One of the ways to experience a supernatural encounter that is safe and is a great first step is to read the bible out loud to the Holy Spirit. It's that simple. Invite the Holy Spirit, ask for protection from the enemy and choose a chapter. The Holy Spirit loves it when we read scripture to Him. Why? Because it gives Him an opportunity to show up. Read as though you are reading to a child. Have fun with it. He will enjoy it and suddenly you will see things in scripture you did not see before and you will understand things that didn't really make sense before. This is also a great way to practice hearing His voice. If you read and listen, He will speak to you. It's a great way to start if you really want to interact with Him. It will bring joy and peace. As people are searching for that "spiritual guide" they are stepping onto the enemy's playground and the Holy Spirit, the true spirit does not play there. One way is yoga, which is the worship of another god, and no matter how much Christian music you play the enemy is still laughing. The stuff we bring in to our homes through television and books actually invites the demonic in. Out of curiosity I read up on what exactly a luau is after I heard more than one believer say they will not attend one. Quick explanation, the males and females ate separately, but the king in his lust and perversion changed that and now not only do they eat together but there is sensual dancing. A church actually had a luau in God's house, inviting lust and perversion in. Most didn't recognize it, because it has lived there for a long time. I heard a 14 year old say she had her first lap dance that night. That's disgusting. I was looking at the pictures of the faces these dancers were making and the demonic face in the smoke of a candle was enough to convince me. When I asked the pastor what he saw in the smoke, he saw a seductive woman and my case was made. He still thinks I am crazy, but that is exactly what the enemy wants him to think. If we want to know if another religion is bad, we think nothing of reading their literature, but how many times do we believe something from one persons opinion of one single experience, and the enemy loves this. The enemy will always twist the truth. Counterfeit money does not look like monopoly money, instead it looks like the real thing. Often a good counterfeiter takes the real thing and changes the number on it, which makes it look like it is worth more, but no matter what it is a counterfeit and truly worth nothing. If you have a large church or churches, the enemy does not want to shut it down, he wants to lead it in the wrong direction. Let's say the pastor is having an affair. It is smarter for the enemy to keep it quiet and slowly lead the pastor into false teaching and have all those people follow too. When the affair is exposed it is Jesus who exposes it and this is why scripture says to call out our brothers in sin if we are to be like Jesus. If he has fallen to temptation and is now following the enemy, and we don't call him on it, he will lead his followers over the same cliff he is walking off. I think they call that a soul train. Ha. Our soul is our mind, will and emotions and is all about comforting us. Our soul is where lust lies. Our soul is where Satan goes to tempt us and when our soul responds it's always about us, what we want, what we think, what we feel. On the other hand, our spirit, wisdom, conscience, and communion is about edification and when we respond in the spirit it is about someone else's good or need. When our soul is in charge, we look for comfort for ourselves and this makes it easy for the enemy to step in, but when our spirit is in charge we are more concerned with others and their needs than our own. I tell people who can't get past there anger at someone to bless that person. That has to come from the spirit and it's hard to stay angry at someone you are praying blessings for. We are not called to kill our soul, but we are to make it submit to our spirit, though you will hear many teachers say our spirit should submit to our soul. The enemy loves that lie. In fact the confusion about the difference between soul and spirit is the enemy's doing and confuses scripture or twists it I hear people over and over lately talk of an angry world we are living in. I don't see that. We are living in a world full of fear. Not fear of God, not healthy fear, but enemy generated fear. Even the pastors, even the long time believers are scared. Why? Because the enemy has convinced us/them we are not good enough. This is all about identity. When a leader/teacher has to lie to teach you his lesson, that's exactly what it is, his lesson, not from God. When a teacher has to slam other ministries, he is scared. He is not afraid of the other ministries, but he is afraid he is not good enough. There seems to be a shame factor here. For instance, I heard about a girl who is saving herself for marriage and how she was getting beat up on line. Why? Because if someone is doing something good and we are not doing that same thing, does that make us bad? I would have to ask, "How many of those slandering her did not save themselves for marriage?" The enemy steps in and covers them in shame and then fear and anger and defensiveness. When this happens to us, we tend to call good things bad things if we have not achieved them. For instance many are afraid of speaking in tongue and speak out against it, like it is not important, but it was important enough to be mentioned in the Bible. In fact, 1 Corinthians 14:39 & 40 says Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. 40 But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner. The point is we are running from the good things of God, in fear that the enemy will sneak in, while at the same time in many areas we are playing on the enemy's playground and believing God will show up. Anything not of God is anti-Christ, I feel like I am sitting with my mouth hanging open as I watch the world around me give in to fear. Fear and faith are the same thing; a belief that something that hasn't happened will happen. Whether it is fear or faith depends on who is your God. Once you believe it's going to happen, you actually open a door for it to happen. I got very angry the other night when I heard of this pastor/teacher lying to his class about me. He didn't use my name, but many knew who he was speaking of. If you have faith in what you are saying, why would you need to use deception to manipulate? Because you are full of fear and insecurity. Fear and insecurity are choking this world and causing many to lash out in anger because they feel inferior or believe that others believe they are inferior. I have seen amazing healing. I have seen legs grown out, hearing restored, backs made straight and cancer gone, but the healing I have seen the most and touches me the deepest is hearts healed. Through forgiveness hearts are made whole. I have watched people go back to the root of their wounds and forgive and it changes them. In the process they come to know who they are in Christ. It's so frustrating to watch healing happen several days of each week in believers and non believers and then watch Jezebel and Ahab spirits rule a group of people and turn them away from healing through fear. It's especially difficult when the Lord says, "Let them go." It's hard to let anyone go, when you believe they are going the wrong way, but His ways are greater, He knows all and I trust Him to go find the one. I can only pray His will be done most days, because I don't even know what to ask for to change this world. I don't believe we are called to sit back and say, well, it's prophesy. Yeah, but how long could we put it off with prayer? We can change God's mind. For just one more? I think it's worth it. Very! I turned my anger over to God before I went to bed after hearing these lies and He gave me a dream. I was riding in the back of this woman's car. I was trying to drink a coffee like everything was okay, while she drove erratically trying to scare me. She was passing on the right on a narrow country road and driving very fast. In the dream I finally reached up and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back so she could see well enough to stop the car, but not well enough to continue driving like she was. I told her to pull it over. The next thing I knew I was over her with one hand on her throat and the other ready to punch her as she lay there grinning at me. That's when I remembered, our fight is not against flesh. This team is being controlled by the enemy. He is trying to scare me and I just about fell for it. But instead I pray for exposure of lies and exposure of truth. It seems to be the theme of intercessors lately and it's working, we see lies being exposed all over the place. It is all over the news. I believe it will get crazier in this country, but not like most of us think. I believe a shaking is coming. The wolves who are accusing others will be exposed in government and in the Church. The Lord showed me that many of those who have been in the Church for many years and have always been tried trusted and true will fall away, they are falling away from the leading of the Holy Spirit, if they ever truly followed. It is through these who have been trusted for many years that the enemy will lead many away. The falling away will be so gradual that those who follow them won't see the change. We can't stop checking. We always have to be open to the Lord showing us the changes in people. That one who has led you many years on a journey toward Christ and kept you from sliding off the road, just might be leading you right over a cliff. Test the spirits. The Lord will tell you if you are headed toward danger, but you have to be willing to hear Him. Our soul will be our downfall. The soul, mind will and emotions, will tell us, "I really like this guy, his messages are great, he cries when he talks about Jesus." The pastors and prophets will pay a high price for leading sheep astray. I believe those with the gift of discernment or who claim to have it, will pay a high price also. If Jezebel's position is threatened by anyone all she has to do is tell Ahab there is a demon on that person and Ahab, with the power of a king, in his kingdom, will have that person killed, even if it's by slander. Ahab thinks Jezebel is protecting him, and in a sense she is, but more important to her, she is truly the one in control. Ahab is a puppet with power. Yeah, I am a Jesus freak and many are preaching that God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit is not weird. Have they read the Bible? He spun Ezekiel around in the air before the elders. Yes, the Holy One is weird, by world standards, thanks to Satan for setting those standards. He has made the normal weird. For some reason, we now think pounding a stick on a rock for water is weird, being naked in town even if you are a king or prophet is somehow weird now, walking around a wall and having it fall? Who is your God? Translating, speaking in tongues and riding off into the sky in your chariot is now too strange to be true? How about running supernaturally fast? We would assume drugs, wouldn't we? When people walk around town naked now we lock them up. If it is not the norm, we call it satanic, but was it not God who told Isaiah to parade around for three years in his birthday suit? This is my question to the Church, How badly do you want to see others in heaven? If God told you that He would save a city of millions if you would walk the streets naked for three years would you do it? What if He asked you to walk across the country and the enemy's prisoners would be set free, would you do it? What if He asked you to stop speaking, not one word for a year and 1000 people would be set free from the enemy's grasp, then what? How many of us would convince ourselves that was not God. He wouldn't ask something so weird. Sometimes what He asks us to do is only about us and our faith and obedience. We have normalized God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit right into a box.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17
This isn’t talking about your body. If you were a man before you accepted Christ, you were still a man afterwards. Your body didn’t change. And your soul, which is what the Bible calls the mental-emotional part of you, didn’t automatically change either. It’s subject to change, but you have to renew your mind to experience change in your mind and emotions. But in the spirit, you became a brand-new species of being. Your spirit is totally new. There isn’t an old sin nature left in you. I know this comes as a complete shock to many of you who have been indoctrinated in the-old-nature-versus-the-new-nature theology. Most Christians have been taught to believe that after salvation, they are still the same at their core, and they live the rest of their lives trying to restrain this old nature. They believe they have two natures. That’s schizophrenic, and it produces Christians who are nothing like Christ. - Andrew Wommack
“A company of wolves, is better than a company of wolves in sheep's clothing.” ― Anthony Liccione
Stubbornness is a counterfeit strength. Ministering to a young lady awhile back the Lord showed this to me. I needed to hear it, because I have always been told how stubborn I am and actually held some pride in it. Then when I saw the harm it had done in this young woman's life I was almost embarrassed about my stubbornness and I also saw how those words had been spoken over me and cursed me my whole life. The Lord has been showing me how easy it is for the enemy to get into our lives with counterfeits. Talking to a young man. he told me how difficult it was becoming to study his bible every day and how far away from Jesus he was feeling. He was also feeling guilt. Then he talked about how he would listen to worship music in the car and find himself totally submitted and close to the Lord. Jesus showed him there was a spirit of religion tormenting him, convincing him that reading scripture daily was required, and though we do need to know the Word, it had become a religious exercise instead of a hunger to know the Lord. Worship was where he could abandon all rituals and submit. It was all about loving Jesus. The enemy can come as an angel of light and why wouldn't he? Counterfeit's are an imitation of truth. A counterfeit keeps you from the real thing. Another area the Lord was showing me was in healing. The Lord wants every single broken part of us healed. So, if we broke a leg, would we hobble around on it and take pain medicine? It would not heal correctly. It might seem like it is healed, but we would probably never run on it again. If you covered up the real problem of the broken leg with a numbing agent, painkiller, who knows what would happen. What if the bone set with your foot facing the wrong direction? Ha. So instead of addressing the symptom, we cannot be whole until we address the real problem, the true brokenness. Line up the bone and put a cast on it. I am truly concerned about the "healing" oils people are using lately and I have seen a change in the people using them. One woman I have ministered with the last few years always used to ask, "What is the root issue?" Now she has an oil to cover the pain. People aren't getting healed, they are getting numbed. I am not saying not to use them, but I am saying, What about the root? Migraine headaches are often brought on by guilt, cancer often has a bitterness root and asthma from fear and anxiety. There is more to it than this and this isn't always the issue, but often times it is. If we cover the root with an oil or numbing agent, the symptom may be gone, but the root wound or issue is still operating. Many people are resorting to plastic surgery instead of healing wounds. Instead of finding the truth about who they are in Christ, they get breast enhancement, reshape their noses, and even change their gender. It is obvious these people don't know who they are or that God does not make mistakes and He does not make junk. The sad part is that so many people cheer them on. Even Christians, who say they believe in the all powerful King of Kings will not believe who the Word says they are and instead search for themselves in diets, titles, and false friendships. Whenever something does not feel right on our outside, we need to look at our inside. Are we looking for significance in the wrong places? Are our friends turning their backs? How did we treat them? Why did we treat them that way? What is the root wound? Is the oozing wound in our heart that has not been dealt with, getting gunk all over our friends? Whatever is in our heart, comes out our mouth. We can't hide broken for very long. Over the last several months, I have seen whole families find complete freedom from going back and finding the old hurts and healing the lies with TRUTH. The Lord told us to heal the sick. Healing comes from truth and anything else is a lie or a counterfeit. I have even seen this in the church. Why is one church losing people weekly, while another with the same beliefs is growing like crazy? The growing church has a pastor who is chasing after Jesus. and willing to look at any darkness or old wound in his heart. The Holy Spirit is running his church and his testimony is drawing in the lost. They understand him and want what he has. It's hard to follow a leader who is not moving. The other church is under a counterfeit, focused on the stuff that does not matter to Jesus. Numbers. It strikes me funny that NUMB is such a large part of the word numbers. Drawing people in. A mentor told me once that we preach, we minister to an audience of one and if we start looking at more than that one, if we start needing numbers instead of His approval, we start losing. I have heard a lot of teaching lately on how we put man first and it gets us sideways. Even in communion when we have grape juice instead of wine, we have taken on the responsibility of keeping the drunkards sober, when that is between him and the Lord. Another form of tickling the ears? The world has told us that one drop of wine can reignite a hunger for alcohol and maybe it can, but God, the Almighty can interfere with the worlds truth. World truth often times is a lie. I heard a man sharing a vision with a younger man and he said, "I know flowers are girlish, but...." That's a lie. God didn't make flowers for girls. In fact, weren't the flowers created before the female? Just sayin'. It's okay to love flowers, men. It does nothing harmful to your masculinity. There are many other ways the enemy gets us to look at the world and deception, when we are looking for Jesus and truth. The enemy has us battling against flesh instead of the true enemy. The enemy puts a job with a status or title we think we want in front of us, instead of waiting on the true calling the Lord has for us. I just heard a speaker say that instead of looking for titles like apostle, pastor or prophet, we should be pursuing the title of bondservant or follower. The highest position of leadership a man can have in the kingdom of God is Head of his household. It's where he can do the most good and where he can do the most damage if he fails. When prophecy says you have a great call on your life, instead of aiming up at that title, we should be looking down to servanthood or we will never be a great man/woman of God for the Kingdom.
“Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'
While worshipping a while back the Lord gave me a vision. I was standing at the parted sea and the promised land was on the other side. As I stood there I realized how high those walls of water really were, how dark the passage at the bottom of the sea really was, and how fear and trust were the deciding factor - Can I do this? Do I trust Him enough to hold back the walls or will He allow them to come crashing down on me and I will drown? There in that moment, I heard Him say, "Don't ever forget this moment." When you are in ministry, constantly called to be the Moses who has the faith to stretch out his hand in obedience to God, so that God will part the sea for those you are leading to the promised land, you can't forget the fear of that moment. This is where our testimony comes into play. I stood there at that sea, with my past racing up behind me, wanting me dead, with no clue to what was on the other side and more faith in the Moses God had sent to stretch out his hand than in the God who was actually the one to part the sea. In the natural, at conception, our gender is decided, our eye color, hair color and the shape of our nose. In the supernatural God has already decided these things, before our parents even met or the earth was even formed. That day he called it into existence a war began. The enemy plans to destroy us immediately through fear and through deception. There is nothing so pure, beautiful and peaceful as a sleeping baby. There is nothing so loved and so hated. If we could only see what is really going on around that totally unaware child. Do not fear. The bible says it repeatedly and the baby does not fear, but as he grows and the enemy's plan starts to unfold around him, fear creeps in. He uses abuse, divorce, bullying, trauma, etc. to scare the child from his identity in Christ. The most important thing Christ has for us is our identity in Him and the last thing the enemy wants us to get a hold of, to truly know, is who we are in Christ and fear is his ultimate weapon. Fear of abuse, abandonment, rejection, what man thinks, and on and on. We are slaves to an identity that is not ours. We become slaves, in bondage to the deception caused by circumstances brought into our lives by the enemy. Then the day comes where we stand at the sea. Imagine it. You are a believer standing at the opened sea. Your past demons are racing up behind you threatening to return you to bondage for the rest of your life, you can feel the mist of the water on your face as you examine those tall walls being held back by a God you say you believe in, and you have been told His promise of freedom is on the other side. You look up to the top of a huge rock where Moses stands with his hand stretched out. Who do you trust? Moses seems more in control right now than God, who you can't see. What if Moses was screaming at you, "You don't deserve this. You are a sinner!! You better say your sorry for every thing you have done before you step into that pathway. REPENT or BURN!!" Wouldn't you start wondering if this so called path to freedom was really God at all? If it is, do I want to trust Him to hold this open for me? If He called this angry guy to stretch out his hand to hold the water back, who should I really be trusting here? I have had the word repent screamed at me before and it was much more powerful and inviting when it was whispered to me. To be led through the Red Sea to the freedom on the other side by Moses, began way back before they even saw the water. Moses had spent time with his people showing them God's truth. The locust, the darkness, the plague and death were all used so his people knew Moses was hearing God and this built trust. When they stood at the sea, they already had reason to trust Moses and more importantly to trust God. I was with a friend doing street ministry a few weeks ago. On the street you don't have time to build years of trust, so you really have to listen to the Holy Spirit to accelerate enough trust to plant seeds. We approached a young man who was high and about to get into a car with a complete stranger to get higher. My friend took his hand in hers and aggressively spoke of Christ's pursuit of him. She is usually very gentle and I was shocked at her insistence. I began to pray protection as I felt darkness close in around us. I wanted her to get back in the box. This is not how we usually do this. But she kept at him and I kept praying. He thanked us and began walking away. I was a little relieved it was over, to be honest. But then the Lord gave me a question to ask him and with some prodding, I finally did. Holy Spirit nailed it. We eventually found out that when my friend took his hand, his high left him. The Holy Spirit gave us more words to share with him about his life and his trust in us grew, because there was no denying we were hearing God and He had sent us that Saturday morning to meet with this young man. We have stayed in contact and this man has spent time with my friends family and is making his way through the sea. The Lord showed us both that day who He saw when He looked at this young man and we saw a brother. We told the enemy, "Let my people go" because we knew he was one of God's kids and he was broken and hurting and didn't know who to trust. He is learning to trust Jesus. Fear keeps many believers at the edge of the sea. They have set up camp there in the desert with the mist of the water keeping them just cool enough to stay in that lukewarm place. Some are too fearful to take the steps through that passage to freedom and others have fooled themselves into thinking they have already passed through and are actually on the other side now. One of the fears keeping believers in the lukewarm camp is a fear of the supernatural. Obviously those walls of water are being held back by the supernatural power and authority of God. To be humble is not about our behavior as much as it is about believing and knowing who He is and what He has done and what He can do. The harder the heart, the bigger the fear of the supernatural. To walk in the supernatural takes a humble heart. The minute we fight pride, we fight belief in His ability to do all things. Pride makes up the box the religious keep Him in. Fear of the unknown keeps us from passing through the sea of cleansing and healing. Yes, it is scary to walk through the sea and it gets darker and deeper as you go, but then there is a point where it gets lighter and we can see the other side and it is so worth it. Jesus told us to do many things and fear keeps us from them. The enemy has been working on this all of our lives. Fear keeps us from loving others, loving God and loving ourselves. Fear keeps us from submitting to the Father and following Jesus in every area of our lives. Fear keeps us from laying hands on the sick and healing them. Fear keeps us from casting out demons, from raising the dead, from speaking in tongues, from weeping with those who weep, from humbling ourselves and forgiving. Fear keeps us from giving, from confessing our sins and all the other things He asks us to do. Fear even keeps us from resisting temptation. Pride keeps us from admitting we are full of fear. We twist scripture to prove we are right. We slander others to lift ourselves to a place of believing we know all about God and how we are to live. This is all fear and it is fear of man and an unhealthy fear of God and who He really is. Fear keeps us from worship and from praying and when this happens, we are in trouble. We deny the gifts and the supernatural out of fear. I was ministering to a man who was so hungry for God, but had fear that he wasn't doing things right. The Lord told me to blow on his stomach. Weird right? Exactly what I was thinking, but obedience means everything so I told the man what I was going to do and he looked at me with the wide eyes of a little boy. I had no choice but to trust and so I blew. Immediately this man broke. He cried and cried and raised his hands to the Lord shouting praises. I don't know exactly what happened, and I don't have to know. Yes, I probably looked like a weirdo by worldly standards, but the freedom this man found was worth every bit of being uncomfortable. It increased my faith in God and how good He is. Did something happen in the supernatural realm that I couldn't see? Or was it a test of obedience that caused a breakthrough? Doesn't matter to me. If looking foolish by the worlds standards sets people free, I am your servant, Lord. I don't care what I look like to others. What I care about is getting people through to the other side of that sea. Fear is a barrier to intimacy. How can you be intimate with someone you fear? One of the ways the enemy uses fear is to keep people from their prayer language. Does it sound foolish? Only to those who fear it. Have you ever shared a moment with someone and after that there is a word you can say that only the two of you know what it means? You can be in a room full of people and you say that word or phrase and they know exactly what you mean (much more than what was spoken) but nobody else in the room knows. That's an intimate moment. That's what praying in your prayer language is like. It's a conversation between you and Jesus that even the demonic does not know what is being said. The enemy hates it and will try to convince people it is evil so they won't even attempt it. He doesn't want intimacy and/or secrets between you and Christ. He does not want you having a conversation that he cannot hear. So he uses fear to keep us from it. Fear of man, fear of the gifts, all fear causes us to want to control. Control is the opposite of submit. We control by denying the gifts are for this time or controlling what people think about the gifts. Doubt and unbelief grieve the Holy Spirit more than anything. If you gave somebody a gift and they did not accept it or they wanted it in a different color or model wouldn't that be a slap in the face? They are called gifts, because that's what they are. We honor God by accepting these gifts as He has given them. To say we believe in Him, but don't trust Him, to say we believe the Word of God, but only parts we are comfortable with, to trust man's word more than the Father's and to stand at the sea and not go through it, leaves us in the camp called lukewarm and you know what happens there.
The opposite of rejection is Jesus!!
“The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.” ― Francis Chan
1 Corinthians 3:1-3New American Standard Bible (NASB)
3 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, 3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking [a]like mere men?
There is a finite number of unbelievers who have not been told about Jesus. There is a number of people who have heard of Him, but have not been introduced. They are out there living their lives every day, but nobody is introducing them to Jesus. Why? I believe it's because we are sitting back on our religious beliefs that they will come to us. Churches have become businesses. We run them like we are trying to lure in shoppers instead of going out to where the people are. We offer hundreds of classes, comedy tours, food and drink. Church isn't for the unbeliever, it is for fellowship of believers, building them up to go out and reach the unbelievers. It's supposed to be a place where disciples are made, through training and discipline, but instead it has become a nursery. I believe the church building is a place where we worship, but many don't even understand what worship is. Worship is not singing a couple songs to Jesus. Worship is not for us. It's not to get us in a good mood or to help us feel closer to God, though when one truly worships Him these things can and do happen. Worship is about honoring God. Taking time to adore Him, to thank Him, to submit to Him. In the concordance it compares to a dog licking it's masters hand. Prostrate oneself in homage. If people truly understood the meaning of worship, would they come late, because they hate the singing? Would they ditch out early to miss the last song? We don't have to sing, we don't have to stand, we don't have to lift our hands, it is a heart expression that causes us to want to do those things. I struggled with worship for a long time until a friend gave me awesome advice. He asks Jesus how He wants to be worshipped in that moment. This works great for me. Sometimes I raise a hand, sometimes I sit and other times I get down on my face. It's all about Him. Many churches have turned worship into singing a few songs. People walk around talking and even eating food provided by the church, while the true worshippers struggle to not be distracted. It's sad. It is very sad that such an opportunity is wasted because we are too selfish and focused on our wants to take some time out to adore, honor, and truly worship the King of Kings. Have we forgotten who He is? He has grown tired of the church (buildings) and is about to give it a shaking that many wont survive.
I heard of a Christian man who is having an affair with a married woman. He goes to church every Sunday with his wife and kids and plays the good man. Afterwards, he drinks in the bars and chases woman after woman. I have been asking God how we are supposed to talk to unbelievers about Christ when Satan is making sure they see Christians cheating on their spouses, checking out the opposite sex, lying, raging, etc. etc. The church or should I say nursery is full of babies who don't want to mature and have even reached a point where they are spitting up their milk. When scripture speaks of spewing or spitting out it is something distasteful. I'm believing the milk is no good. Maybe if we fed the babes good milk, they would grow. Maybe if we fed them nourishing milk they would want more, rather than the watered down stuff they are getting. The Lord took me to several verses confirming that we are to judge our brothers. He is to judge the unbeliever's. Has one person gone to this guy and said "What you are doing is wrong in the eyes of the Lord" Discipline, repentance, forgiveness, and all that is deemed harsh has been removed from the teachings. God has had enough. This churches and this nation are about to pay the price for watered down gospel. If the preachers don't start preaching the Truth, if the worshippers aren't truly worshipping the one true King, and if the prayer warriors don't start praying in His will instead of their own (witchcraft) God is going to shut down the churches and start giving out spankings. A couple weeks ago while I was in prayer the Lord gave me these words: The tents fell and what was once a gathering place for My people now appears like a ghost as they try to escape from under the weight of what they created without Me. Jesus gave us instructions. It's very difficult to pray for the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, weep with the weeping, worship, pray, use our gifts for the Kingdom, when we smell like rotten milk and people don't want to be near us. The smell of the lukewarm?
Hebrews 6:1-4New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 Therefore leaving the [a]elementary teaching about the [b]Christ, let us press on to [c]maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do, if God permits. 4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
“I gasp, and I'm Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he's the serpent, and I cannot resist.” ― E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey
I said if I even heard the words "Fifty shades of Grey" again I would puke. It was either the Holy Spirit or my own flesh who asked "Why?" This topic is every where and every time I hear it, I think, "Well, the enemy is pleased to hear this." Yes, he pulled one over on us, but I am here to condemn him, not the people in the movie, the person who wrote the book or even those who drove miles to a town where they would not be seen in the dark theater where they were actually turned on by watching this film. I am here to say, the enemy has been doing this to people in the dark for years and it's finally been brought out into the light. What are we doing about this as Christians? I have heard Christians judge, by saying horrible things about this movie and the book and all people associated with it. I have heard Christian leaders say things like, "I choose not to see it" with some kind of religious pride. Others say things like, "Come on people, it's a given, We as believers should not watch this stuff." I have yet to hear or read of anyone saying, "Hey, these are the broken people Jesus wants in His Kingdom and it's our job to go get them." Seriously, if Jesus was walking the earth today, where would He be and what would He be saying? I was with a group of women months ago when the book was popular and we prayed every person who read it would be touched by God. Hear is the secret that has been brought out to the light that we are still ignoring: Any man who is turned on by abusing a woman is broken. But we knew that, didn't we? Any woman who agrees to be abused or wants it, is broken. When a man wants to abuse a woman he has hatred toward the gender, probably caused in his childhood. Any woman who feels that love is about abuse, was abused at some point and associates pain with love. The hatred she feels is toward herself. I know women who enjoy being abused in the bedroom and each of them was abused as a child and hates herself. Some are in denial and some haven't got to that point of realization, but they are trying to punish themselves for what happened to them in the past. This is an opportunity for us as believers to reach out. But what the enemy has done is talked believers into condemning and judging so the broken men and women who are drawn to this movie and this lifestyle are too ashamed to reach out. With all I have heard on social media, I would climb into a closet and wait for this to pass, too. This is not what Jesus intended. What if all the churches who claim to be believers and followers of Christ were to reach out to the broken right now? What if they had a group to join or even phone numbers people could call anonymously for help? What if there was actually a sermon on the brokenness involved in this lifestyle? Whoa, imagine a leader brave enough to call in somebody who knows more than him and have them speak to the congregation. Prayer lines, a worship night to raise funds for sexual abuse, a prayer night for all affected by this book and movie? I am pretty sure, yes, I do believe that is exactly where Jesus would show up in this day if He was walking in a human body again and even more strongly I believe He will show up in the spirit today if we are strong enough to love these people. Come on Church, most of us are the ones who need prayer on this subject, either because we are turned on by it or we judge it. Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself.
“The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself.” ― Shannon L. Alder
The dimensions of forgiveness? 70 times 7. When the Lord wants to show you something it is amazing the memories He can bring to the surface. I was in grade school, but I don't remember which teacher it was who said, "Whenever you see the multiplication sign you can insert the word "by"." This makes sense when forgiving 70 by 7. This makes the whole dimension theory appear to be more than a theory. I want to know more about these levels of forgiveness. I am in the word every day reading and learning with a hunger for knowledge that I haven't had in a couple years. Then I heard a sermon on chasing the experiences of those in the bible when we can have our own experience. I haven't been experiencing Him like I was. In fact, I have been somewhat avoiding Him. After the road trip with friends brought a lot of junk to the surface I was more hungry for personal experience and more healing. Where does all this hurt come from and why can't I put it behind me. I gave up running.
Me: Jesus, why am I unwilling to spend the time I used to spend with you? I used to get on my knees for hours and You showed me all these things about me and about You and now our conversations are more mechanical. Jesus: You have come to the end of your intimacy. Me: WHAT? This is it? This is the great intimacy that everybody talks about? Well that's a let down. Jesus: You have come to the end of what you know. There is deeper intimacy, but you will have to allow Me to take you there. As fear grips my throat, I realize a change of subject is in order. Me: Okay, but why can't I forgive "what's his name"? I still get so angry. Jesus: You have forgiven, you know his heart, you see what the enemy is doing in his life, but nobody taught you to grieve. Me: Grieve? What do you mean grieve? Jesus: Grieve the loss of the friendship. Grieve the person you thought you knew and accept he does not exist. If you allow Me to walk you through this grief, the intimacy with Me will grow. Me: Goodnight Jesus: I will be right here Me: Goodnight.
Who wants to grieve? I spend the day reading about forgiveness. I study but everything seems to be a rabbit trail. I replay our conversation over and over and it makes a little more sense, but seriously? Who wants to grieve?
That afternoon in a conversation with one of the people I live with, I complain about not getting anything done. B: You were in scripture all day. That is doing something. Me: God said if He gives me a real job like I asked, He would lose me. He said work is another escape, addiction, way of avoiding life. B: Look at all He has shown you. You aren't wasting time. This is good stuff. As we sit at the table with the Bible and the Concordance and begin our almost daily digging into scripture, I tell him about a woman I prayed for the night before. Her daughter was killed in a car accident and she could not forgive the driver of the car. When she spoke the words, "I forgive" she broke. It was so good to see her let loose of some of that anger. B: Wow, anger keeps the pain away. It keeps us from grieving. Me: What? Are you kidding? We both realize how this applies to me. B: I'm sorry. Me: Don't be. That makes so much sense. That is what I am doing, I am stuck in the anger so I don't have to grieve. There we sat, our eyes filled with tears. Me: This is going to suck B: No it's not.
One of the levels, a very important level to forgiveness is grief. Grief has 5 to 7 levels of it's own. The dimensions theory is further proven. The first stage of grief is denial and the second is anger. What I thought was unforgiveness, is really the anger that comes in grief. Any situation where forgiveness is called for there is grief for what was lost. It could be trust, it could be a friendship, it could be a life. Fear of grieving is huge. Why is it that I can forgive somebody who sexually abused me over and over, but I can't seem to walk through this? When Jesus takes me back to the memory of grieving for what was lost through the abuse, I remember being wrapped in a blanket for two days, barely able to move. The tears kept coming, when I thought there couldn't possibly be any left. I grieved my childhood, my innocence and all the parts of my life I missed out on because of the abuse. After that, this should be easy? Right? No. It's not. Those people, even though I knew them and they were significant in my life before the abuse, (most of them anyway) this person is different. Why? I did not trust him because of his position in the world or in my life. I trusted him because I chose to. I battled hard for that trust. I thought he was battling with me. There were many times I thought he would turn his back and he had every right to, but he didn't. He got up in the night when God woke him to pray for me. He said he would protect me. What exactly am I grieving? The Lord showed me recently that when he rejected me, it took me back to the moment my dad left. I was eleven years old and angry. When this person turned to walk away, there was an eleven year old's anger that came out of me. I was not almost fifty with the maturity of someone that age. I was that eleven year old sitting in that dark basement realizing that this man was not who I thought he was and I only had the maturity level of that eleven year old in the area of dealing with the hurt. I hurled every word I could come up with to hurt him back, just like I did with Dad almost forty years ago. The biggest difference was with Dad, I grabbed his leg and begged him not to go. When I did let go, I promised myself I would never again beg anyone not to leave me. I stuck to my promise. In fact, I screamed everything I could to make sure he never came back. While I was with my friends on our road trip, I had a vision. There was this huge carrot in the ground and God said, "Let's pull this out. It is a root." I pulled, but the green just broke off the top. I saw his hand go right into the dirt around that carrot and grab a hold. He said, "Are you ready? I am going to pull this out." I said, "No. Leave it. Cover it up with dirt. Nobody will know it's there." He and I know it's there and it has to come out. Why a carrot? Carrots are good for the eyesight? Things will look different? Here we sit. Grief huh? You going to stand there with Your hand on that carrot all day, God? I see Him smile. Suddenly, I think of a bad tooth. The constant pain. It needs to go. Tylenol or pull it? Keep the ache or pull it out by the root? This may seem a little crazy, because as bad as I know it is going to hurt, I also know the relief will be HUGE. His hand grips the carrot a little tighter and I rest my hand on His arm like I do at the dentist so that if I panic I can signal Him to stop. Ready? He is ready. Am I ready? Believe it or not, no. I don't want to do this. I'm going to go find something else to do. I could lie, but let's face it. I am avoiding for now. Maybe tomorrow.
“The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man's strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE WRONG. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say:"I was wrong." will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes.” ― Jim Anderson, Unmasked: Exposing the Cultural Sexual Assault
It was very early in the morning, not much traffic on the road, when the Lord whispered to me in that still small voice. Months ago a friend and I spent a lot of time discussing God's tone. We had heard a speaker say, "What if it was not a big booming voice that said I AM, but what if He whispered it?" This changes everything. What if He did not explode in a demanding tone, "BE HOLY AS I AM HOLY." Some versions of the Bible have these words in CAPS. What if He whispered these words. Honestly, they are stronger to me when whispered, because they are an invitation to be like Him. He gives us free will and draws us in. He uses the example of a shepherd who leads the sheep instead of driving cattle. So on this foggy cold morning, when many hadn't even been to bed yet, I was getting up and driving to a friends where five us were about to set out on a road trip. This was a trip to a church 12 hours away where we knew God had selected the five of us to go, because He had an experience for us. In that darkness as I was driving He whispered, "Repent." I knew what He was saying immediately. The enemy wants us to see Him as this big demanding, judgmental "I see everything you do and I'm waiting to send you to hell" God. What if He is asking us, "Repent, please change your mind, your attitude on this particular subject." If our child was standing on the edge of a pit of fire and about to fall in, fear would most likely take over and we would most likely yell "GET BACK!" and honestly we could scare them so badly they could fall in. But God is not scared. He knows and sees all. I believe He is saying, "Step away from the danger and change your course. When I was talking to a friend about this, he reminded me of Elijah hiding in the cave in 1 King 19 and God asks, What are you doing here?" He knows Elijah is hiding. He knows fear is controlling Elijah's actions. He doesn't show up in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, no God speaks to him in that still small voice and basically says, Put fear aside, change your direction and go. Change your attitude, your belief, change your direction, instead of deeper in the cave go forth to do My will and don't sit in the regret of what has happened, just go. Repent? We have made this into an ugly scary HUGE thing, when really as I see it He just wants us to see truth. So if we believe the lie that we are worthless, because the enemy has been pounding it into our heads since conception, will God yelling, "YOU ARE NOT WORTHLESS." convince us we have value? I don't think so. To change our beliefs about this lie and come to believe our life has value, a whisper would be more convincing to me. Then comes the sorrow for believing the lie and acting on it. I am not saying that God does not get angry or discipline. He has spoken firmly and clearly to me and I knew it was a time when I needed to listen and not argue. Some people don't believe this can be God. I knew it was. In a recent post I told of a curse He told me to break and I argued. The next thing I had a full size Buck slam into the side of my car. My mirror, for looking back, was completely busted off the car. I repented. Why? Because I knew how serious He was. He did not want me lining up with the lie. I was sorry, not as much for not wanting to break the curse, but what really broke me was that He had better for me and I was refusing it, I was limiting Him, I had Him in a box. I broke the curse, asked forgiveness and then had a very valuable conversation with the Holy Spirit. I changed my heart and my mind and became willing to align with God's will in this area. God wants more for us, He wants us to have all He has for us, but so many of us get stuck. I had a pastor yell at me to repent. I knew enough about him, that his words were offensive, YOU are telling ME to repent? Don't we lead by example? That night driving in the fog, God reminded me of that moment how little impact his words had on me because of who I saw when I looked at him. BUT, God also reminded me of the many times through healing where people I trust said to me in a normal voice, "You will have to repent for that." then they exposed the lie I was believing, the damage it had done to my life and walked me through changing my belief and attitude. Repentance was not a scary thing, it was freeing, it was empowering, and humbling all at the same time. I believe when we see our error and admit to it and we are transparent about it, we have more success in leading others to repentance. Those who have led me through it, I have seen do it freely and openly in front of others. Power is in our testimony. God's greatest commandment is to love Him, our neighbor and ourselves. Forgiveness, repentance, and obeying are all apart of that. This is another example of the enemy trying to hide the Truth from us.
“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.” ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
“If you are renewed by grace, and were to meet your old self, I am sure you would be very anxious to get out of his company.” ― Charles H. Spurgeon
Yesterday I sat alone watching the championship game. This game would decide one of the two Superbowl teams. Though I was alone, every time a touchdown was scored, in my mind, I could hear rooms full of people cheering, yelling, making manly grunting noises. It made me sad. Fans of the Seattle team even have their own name, the 12th man. I hear all this talk about unity in the church and how we are to achieve it and then church lets out and unity is achieved in thousands of homes in front of a TV screen as they cheer for their team. There is unity in sports. People wear the team colors, even painting their nails and hair. Why can't we have this in the church. We all gather by the thousands causing blackouts and water issues at halftime cause we are all running to the bathroom at the same time. They even measure the "Fakequake" the fans cause with their cheering when there is a touchdown, but when a soul is saved and announced in church, we often resort to the "golf clap" This is what I call a false unity. It will be over when the season ends. Even 9/11 caused a unity in this country, but I believe it was a false unity because it died off rather quickly. I come as a fairly new believer and there are things I just don't understand. In order for something to grow, it needs roots. Where are the roots of Christianity in this country? Where are the elders? Who do we go to with our questions? Aren't we supposed to have teachers? Also, aren't the teachers supposed to learn from their students. Instead I see teachers turning on their students, because they do not agree with their teachers, and actually question their teaching. Where is that in the Bible? All we get is a shoulder shrug. I hear these churches trying to draw in unbelievers. Where is that in the bible? Isn't the Church supposed to go out and meet them where they are at? I hear it being preached that Jesus meets us where we are at. Well, I am at the grocery store, at my job, walking down the street, etc. etc. I don't see you followers of Jesus. I talked to God about this the other day. I believe the picture I saw was from Him. Men were calling out to people, "Come over here" and there were flashing lights and other things to draw customers in. When I asked God what He was showing me I heard the word carnival. Games, food and rides. They all represent the Church. There are the rides that are a thrill and then they are over. There is the food that is not nutritious, only good for our taste buds and there are the games that only take our money. The people at each station are yelling out for us to come to them, for the most fun. If you want to win, come to my booth, we believe the Sabbath is on Saturday. No, no, come over here, we only teach grace, cause that is all that matters. We have the booths, rides, food trailers, each representing the different focuses in the church buildings We teach through the King James, we don't believe in hell, we speak in tongues, we don't. Everybody is trying to draw in the unbeliever, yet do they even talk to them to see why they don't go to church? Maybe they don't like carnivals? Maybe they have been lied to all their lives and don't want to play anymore. Maybe they have PTSD and hate crowds. Maybe they hate hearing about grace and then getting yelled at to repent when they tell the truth. Maybe they are waiting for someone to care enough to find them where they are at. Maybe they want the truth that is written in the Holy Bible even if it hurts. Where does the bible speak of being comfortable? Where does it talk about Jesus gathering up comfortable couches and serving cold drinks, before speaking to a crowd? Where does it say, Jesus ordered them to build a huge building and draw people in? Where does it say, we don't discipline our brothers and sisters, we just give grace and continue allowing them to influence the people? Jesus spoke Truth. He walked around the country from town to town and people who had heard of Him came to hear. Where did they hear about Him? On the street? Or did they meander into a big building and ask what was going on? Last night I looked up four words in the Concordance and was surprised how many times those words were spoken by Jesus. He only says what the Father says. Love, loves, loved, etc was spoken 70 times by Jesus in the Bible. Forgive in all it's forms was spoken by Him 37 times and repent was 27. The first word I looked up that surprised me the most was the word "Grace" It was spoken one time. My grace is sufficient. If this is any kind of scale as to how we should be teaching we are in big trouble. Maybe there are things I don't see or understand but these are the things the Lord is speaking to me and as a somewhat new believer this is my most honest truth about what I see. I do know people and hear stories of them speaking to people in the marketplace. Those people don't brag about how many chairs they filled last Sunday, but they do brag about how awesome their God is. It's embarrassing to see the individual churches look more like a billboard than a safe place. We offer classes, coffee and comfort. Really? How about Truth, which booth do I have to go to in order to find Truth. Even if it hurts, I want it. Teach me to hear God and then I will tell you if He wants me sprinkled or dunked. Stop giving me the "Do as I say, not as I do" crap I got growing up. People in the world who have never entered a church can read "Fake" a lot easier than most of the people who have been sitting there for years. If the pastor disappeared, would they know how to feed themselves. Maybe there are so many denominations and beliefs because God never intended the Church to be a building and so He won't give one church all the truth. Maybe the one with the truth is the one pounding the pavement for the Lord. So as we argue about beliefs and then go home to drink a beer and watch the game, I have to ask, what is with all this disagreement and why is it so huge? Because as long as we are focused on this little stuff, we are not united. We are not focusing on the real battle. How many unbelievers died blocks from us while we were cheering on our team? Would we have left the game to talk with them or scheduled an appointment for after the game or even better yet, for Monday. Another thing the Lord and I have been talking about is the state of the nation. We all sit around talking about how the enemy is taking over this country, this world and how the times are getting so bad. The state the world is in is the responsibility of the Church. We are talking about our own failure. If you want to meet for a weekend service, how often do we take the time to pray for this nation, for the leaders, for the world? We have authority to bind the enemies hands. We focus on each person, each unbeliever, each play in the game, when this is a much bigger deal. This is war. The other day as I was wrestling with doubt, the Lord reminded me of dreams He gave me over three years ago. I had a dream that a megachurch pastor was being run over by a blue Ford pickup. It was over two years that He explained the details of the dream. The pastor represented the Church and he was being run over by a demon driving a blue pickup. The blue was the color of the high priest. So, the church is under attack by it's own leaders. When I doubted that dream I asked for another with the same meaning. I had forgotten about that dream until the other day when doubt was attacking again. The second dream was the cast from Happy Days. They were laughing and dancing while in the woods behind them, I saw dark shadows moving about. The part of the dream that I never understood until just now was the mom from Happy Days was leaning against a big rock. Mom's in my dreams usually represent the pastor. She was leaning on the rock, not standing on it. She was glaring at me and she was not happy. Why? Because I am telling people that the enemy has infiltrated the church. Even when a bad church collapses those wounded people and their hurt and their demons are spread to many other churches. Who walks them through healing? Instead we cheer them on while they build new churches that are rooted in their wounds. We are focusing on the symptoms and not the real issues. The pastor is too busy focusing on addiction and divorce and things the enemy has done instead of showing us how to bind him. Is this because it is what he is dealing with in private? We would not allow a drunk (on alcohol) pastor to preach, would we? Would we cover it up? Drunkenness is noticeable, but what if he is lusting, judging, or hating while he preaches? Teaching us how to hear, heal, and cast out demons would sound more like teaching us to be like Jesus than focusing on grace when we mess up. Aren't we supposed to be renewed by grace? Grace doesn't mean to stay in your crap and know you are still saved. Not only are you healed and forgiven, but pick up your mat, clean up your mess and get out there. People are dying and yes, they are going to hell. What are we supposed to do Pastor when our friends die and we know they do not believe? How do we comfort their families? Do we tell them the truth? Who told us the truth? I even heard it said at a funeral a while back that God was probably standing there waiting for this man with a beer for him. Really? The man loved his beer, dedicated more of his life to beer than Jesus and they really believe God is standing there with a beer for him? Where did they hear their truth? The Church in America is so focused on keeping their rose colored glasses clean that they don't hear the cries of those who are dying and being packed off by demons. We just medicate the sick and dying so we don't have to hear their screams instead of healing them through our hands and through the name of Jesus. If the Church was teaching us our identity in Christ, our TRUE identity those sins, addictions, etc. would fall away. I am angry. It is a righteous anger. In the dream that I had when the pickup ran over the Church, I was standing amongst a group of people on their cell phones texting and talking. The Lord told me, He is sending the message, but nobody is listening. The demonic was driving the high priest, the lead pastor running over the Church and the people God was telling were saying things like, "It'll be okay" and "It will die anyway."
Matthew 11:20 (NASB) 20 Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His [a]miracles were done, because they did not repent.
Call me a troublemaker, upsetter of the peace, whatever you will, but know this, if I don't speak out, the death, the sin is on my head and not the sinner. The game is not a game at all. It's a war. While so many people are coloring their hair and nails crazy colors, the jerseys in this war are replaced by robes and the colors are black or white.
“Repentance must dig the foundations, but holiness shall erect the structure, and bring forth the top-stone. Repentance is the clearing away of the rubbish of the past temple of sin; holiness builds the new temple which the Lord our God shall inherit. Repentance and desires after holiness never can be separated.” ― Charles H. Spurgeon
That last post brought me into a few deep conversations that helped me to see this more clearly. When God reminded me of the verse Daniel 9:24 that begins with the Seventy weeks have been decreed, determined, etc. it didn't even register with me at the time that seventy weeks is 70 times 7. It is about rebuilding. Forgiveness is the root to rebuilding cities, nations and people. After realizing this and some discussion, I wanted to learn more about what Jesus means when He says to follow Him. Take up your cross and follow? In our human minds we get a picture of one entity walking behind another, but when I looked up the word follow in Greek from the verse Luke 9:23 and many other verses that talk about following the words "as a particle of union" hit me hard. I immediately see drops of water falling into a river. This is how closely He wants us to follow, that we become one with Him, if He flows to the east, we flow with Him, around ever turn. God's arms form the river bed as we all move together and once the drops (His people) fall into the river and become one with Him, can they ever again be separated? No, but they can pool off into stagnant water and stop moving. I see the first step in forgiveness is to speak the words. There is life and death in the tongue. When I first spoke the words, "I forgive them", I did not feel it. I did not want to forgive, but I wanted to obey and I wanted to be free. Once those words were out there, I had to flow with Jesus and allow Him to instruct my next steps and as we have walked together through forgiving I am now at a point where I want that total freedom for those who hurt me. I want that freedom for every person, but what I see is forgiveness seems to be the fence so many believers are sitting on. Some choose to stay on the side of not forgiving. Some seem to say the words, but not want to step into a deeper forgiveness on the side of the Lord, of growth, of freedom. Giving forgiveness and even receiving the forgiveness on the deeper level Christ wants for us seems to be the place we get stuck. To say the words is the first step, but it is a surface step. It's a lot easier to forgive over and over on a surface level of just speaking it, than to forgive on a deeper level, layer and find that freedom promised to us. In the story of Naaman he is told to go wash in the Jordan seven times and he would be healed of the leprosy. Naaman wanted a quicker fix, "Can't I just..." How many times do we say these words to God when He is asking us to do something? I used to try to bargain with Him more often than I do now. Naaman washing seven times in dirty water is an excellent picture of the Lord asking us to forgive. What looks like getting your hands dirty is actually going to clean you of the disease of unforgiveness. Joshua is instructed to walk around the walls of Jericho 7 times. With both Naaman and Joshua's stories I can see it takes faith to continue. Just as in forgiveness, with each layer it gets a little harder to have the faith that one day you can be completely free. We can come up with every excuse not to forgive, not to follow Jesus, not to obey on the deepest level. I saw this video yesterday.
I also see where people, including myself find it much easier to accept forgiveness for our transgressions ( Outward sin ) like adultery, stealing, lying than to accept complete forgiveness and complete healing for our iniquities, (Inward motivation that drives us toward sin) lust, hate, attitude. We say things like, "That's just the way I am built" or "It's the thorn in my flesh". But Isaiah 53:5 says "5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." I heard a pastor point out his wounds were outward and His bruises were inward. We can be completely free. We can and must if we are truly following Jesus, a particle of union, set others free. John 20:23 (NASB)
23 If you forgive the sins of any, their sins [a]have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
My world has gone crazy. I have had so much going on I can barely sort my thoughts. While the storm is raging around my boat and I am trying to hold on for dear life, Jesus shows up and says, "Hey, Get out of the boat." Are you crazy? This is not a time to test my water walking skills. A friend asked me to dinner and while she was away from the table I heard the Lord speak, "I want you to write your dad a heart felt letter. Let him know you love him and that he is completely forgiven." That's easy. I can do that. I confidently said, "We can talk about this in more detail later." Then my friend sat down with a "Get out of the boat" expression. "Hey, I just had a vision of you writing a letter and I could see the words "I forgive you"." Well if that wasn't confirmation enough, but instantly I was hit with a knowing that Dad was only the beginning. I would be writing letters to each of those who abused me. Several thoughts flooded my mind for the next day or so. Some of them were mine and some were from the Lord. One thing He showed me was what I had received from my true friends for Christmas was shoes and contacts. Some may think I am making something out of nothing here, but what the Lord showed me was that He has surrounded me with the relationships I need to walk me through this journey (shoes) and help me see clearly (contacts). It was a relief to me. I have forgiven. I feel no anger toward these people. Why now do I contact them? I thought it was finished. Okay God, You are going to have to teach me about forgiveness. I open my heart and my mind for whatever You want to show me. Wow. The last few days have been an intimate ride down a path I never expected. Earlier in the day my friend and I had been talking and out of the blue I heard the Lord say something about the 7 spirits of God and we forgive 70 times 7. I said it out loud and forgot about it, until I got home that night and was thinking about writing the letters. A few of my friends were sharing a writing on the 7 spirits of God and so I asked for a copy, but when I started to read it, the Lord said "No. I don't want you to focus on this, I want you to have a clear mind and hear me." This wasn't the first time He said "No" to me when my friends were studying something and I began to join in, so I stopped reading and put it away. Forgive 70 times 7. Several times in the Bible when the Lord wants to give an infinite number He uses grains of sand, hairs on our head, stars in the sky, things that are too numerous to count. He didn't do that here. We can actually multiply this number and come up with an answer. Why? I have heard many times that this means infinite, but I wasn't feeling that. I got out the Concordance and began to look up the words describing the seven spirits of God and though I felt Jesus was telling me not to go too deep in this area, there was a definite feeling of God's completeness. There were also words that stood out to me. In Hebrew one of the words used to describe the spirit of the Lord were eternal. Forgiveness should be eternal and our forgiveness is. The spirit of Counsel brought out the words purpose and resolve. The spirit of Might brought me to the words victory and mastery. We can have victory in forgiveness. Though I did not focus too much in this area, the one thing I got was forgiveness should be complete. What if 70 times 7 is the dimensions or quality of forgiveness and not the quantity. If we were made in the image of Christ then we should have or be able to attain the 7 spirits of God. I don't totally understand this 7 spirits thing, but I strongly feel it is about completeness. We were made in His image, we are to strive to be like Jesus. God did not send His son every time we sinned. He died once for every sin committed and every sin that would be committed. We forgive the person, not the sin. The sin belongs to the enemy. We are not to be offended. We are to forgive that person so completely that we can never be offended by them or what they did again? So if 7 represents the completeness and the layers or depth of forgiveness, what does 70 mean? I looked up every instance where the bible uses the number seventy. Seventy elders, seventy sons, army of seventy thousand, I'm wasn't seeing anything until BAM. Daniel 9:24, I had been given this verse a couple years ago when God said He was lifting His hand off a particular church.
Daniel 9:24 (NASB)
24 “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.
Instructions on how to finish the transgression? The way I read this there are 7 things to do in 70 weeks. Mariam, Moses sister was struck with leprosy and when Moses asked God to forgive her, God sent her out of the camp for 7 weeks, Nebuchadnezzar was eating with the beasts for 7 years. I'm wondering if 70 is a time allotment? Not that we have a certain amount of time to forgive, but that we keep at it until it's done. We don't throw it on the back burner because it needs to be started immediately and as long as we are striving toward complete forgiveness He will show us the way or ways, layers, parts to complete forgiveness. It's a process. It's His timing. I had to look at Jesus on the cross. That was all about forgiveness. The whole crucifixion was about forgiveness and love. When Jesus was crucified, He did not have to ask for forgiveness because He had not sinned, but He asked the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do and I think He was talking about all of us. We ask for forgiveness for ourselves, but what about asking for forgiveness for others. If we want to be like Jesus, I'm seeing this as a must. The Lord commands us to forgive, it's not a request and Jesus as our example asks the Father to forgive others. God sacrificed his Son and Jesus suffered, though He had done nothing wrong and He suffered for us who had sinned against Him. Who are we not to suffer for those who have sinned against us, hurt us, even if we have done nothing wrong? One other thing the Lord has been talking to me about is communion. We must first examine ourselves. I can't count how many times I took communion before I heard this explained. I wonder how many people are sitting in church buildings examining themselves and finding nothing to forgive or be forgiven? Making excuses in their own minds why they don't have to. Do they understand the importance of examining ourselves? Is this why so many in the Church are asleep?
1 Corinthians 11:27-32 (NASB)
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number [a]sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. God wants to forgive us enough that He sent His only begotten Son to suffer through a horrendous death so we can be reconciled to Him. Why are we so afraid to allow him to shine His light into our dark places and heal, forgive and love us? I want freedom so badly, I don't care how bad it hurts to get there. I'm not stopping. I believe we are to leave the door open, take it off it's hinges, for God to shine a light into our hearts and show us what we need to heal. He took the first step in Jesus crucifixion, now it is our turn. The forgiveness is there and has been presented to us, all we have to do is ask for it. We also need to be willing to give it - For - Give. I had told the Lord weeks ago that I want to be a person with no offense. I want to be that person you can do or say anything to and I don't react. I don't get offended. I don't want to have anything to ask forgiveness for. I am a long way from being this person I want to be, but when the Lord addressed my request we began the conversation on forgiveness. I believe what He showed me is that we forgive the person, not the sin. We forgive the person on such a deep Godly level that nothing they have done to us is remembered and future sins are already forgiven. Isn't that how He loves us? I think we need to get all of our wounds, garbage, baggage, whatever you want to call it, out of the way, cleaned up, dealt with, so when we are asking God for forgiveness, it is always for others. Moses still made mistakes, but how many times did He ask God to forgive those who followed him? Stephen was stoned to death and his last request was forgiveness of those who stoned him. How many of us on our death bed would be thinking of forgiving others? God told Job to pray for his friends after all He had allowed the enemy to do to Job. Was he asking God to forgive them? Probably. David was a man after God's own heart who had opportunity to kill Saul, but he loved him and saw him as God's child and left him for God to deal with. Vengeance is not ours, but forgiveness is ours to freely take and/or give. The first part of forgiveness no matter if we are asking God to forgive us or another person, whether we are giving forgiveness, or forgiving ourselves is to take responsibility. No matter what anyone else is doing, saying or believing, I can do something about this situation. Jesus was sinless as he stood in the gap. God is looking for people to intercede, to stand in the gap and I believe it is our responsibility to be like Jesus mostly in love and forgiveness. So I write my letters when and to whom God tells me. After focusing on forgiveness in such deep and intimate time with God, I have such a deep desire for others, for all abusers to have freedom, to be forgiven, to forgive themselves and to reach a place in their relationship with Jesus that they can't wait to set others free. As I was forgiven before I committed sin, those who abused and hurt me were forgiven by God before they committed any sin against me. We will never know how much it cost to see our sins upon that cross.
Jeremiah 29:10-13 (NASB)
10 “For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans that I [a]have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
