I have been struggling lately with what has been happening to our nation. So much unrest, hate, sin, shame. I am frustrated. As I am sure most of you have been also. Is it possible that we have fallen prey, as the Galatians have to ‘another gospel’. The one where we take our eyes off the word and THE WORD and use our own imaginations to create a sin filled utopia that as long as we post a nice picture with a bible verse in it we are ok?

I’M NOT OK WITH THAT.

The nations are raging, God is laughing and Jesus is declaring.

Our greatest way to deal with life, what is happening is not on Facebook but making eye contact with the Father. We have a generation trying to get rid of the Bible and of God. They don’t want to remove sin, but remove what calls sin, sin. It’s a progressive view of the bible that is not what God says. At All!

Why ? Because He is The ALL, the I Am, the way the truth and the life.

Why do they seek another gospel? Because they haven’t fallen in love with THIS Gospel. THE Gospel. Jesus.

When we seek our own interests, and seek to please ourselves, we are seeking a gospel opposite of Jesus.

He came to serve, not to shame. He also told the one lying naked him, to no longer live a life that was sinful.

In order to know the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is the power of God unto salvation, we have to have a revelation of Jesus. We have to live at the feet of Jesus.

Sin is what happens when we aren’t satisfied with God. And if our experience is all about programs of God, and conferences of God, but not sitting at God’s feet we will quickly begin to believe another gospel.

Where have we given our attention to a lesser thing, that should have been given to God.

It’s time for a Joel 2 response. Turn, return, fast, repent, cry, repent, gather, sanctify, gather. Above all seek the face of Jesus. Look into the eyes of the author – the beginner, and the finisher – the end of your faith. He started you, He completes you and He is all the in-between of you.

I wrote this after my brother’s murder on November 11, 2019.

2019 ended and I was forced to move into 2020, but felt so lonely in a room full of people, underwater looking up but not hearing anything. My husband asked me “where is the disconnect coming from” and God began to speak to me:

 

I’ve been running on adrenaline

trying to find the peace deep within

but grief and pain have caused a block

and made my heart want to stop

I can hear you calling

calling out my name

through the grief, through the pain

to rise up higher

look up here

search for me, Don’t live in fear

 

I (God) will always find you

and I (God) will call out your name

through the haze and crying

I’m still the one whose trying

to find you in the quiet

and give you all my peace

and love you so completely

to draw you after me

 

Come my child

come sit with me

give me your sadness

all your misery

 

take my love, my blood, my heart

and wrap yourself in me

I am your healing and your rest

I give you all of Me

 

Son Light come and heal

let your heat reveal

areas in my heart that need your light

for healing and for living

Let the bright heat of your presence

seep through my skin, going deep within

to the very core,

the very core of more

of where I find You.

Let this heat and light refresh and express

to me where I need your touch

Let Your light break into me,

the very me of me

as it heals, warms and burns my flesh

I can’t help but to express

the joy of the Bright

the bright heat of Your light

that only your SonLIGHT can bring

 

In our ladies bible study, we have been slowly reading and meditating on the birth story of Jesus from Matthew, and I wanted to share some encouraging revelation for you. Why? because it affects you, and how you view this season of promise, possibility and birth.

Matthew 1:20-21 tells us that “She will give birth and give him the Name Jesus”

This is a season of things being birthed.  Many of us have been pregnant with dreams, vision and things we thought were from God, and this is the time that those things will be birthed.

How will we know its from God? Because He gives it a name. When God calls it and the Holy Spirit directs it, He names it. Just like he named Jesus, He will name what is coming forth from you.

Not only will he name your dream, vision or season, He calls it something.  Notice that verses 22-23 say he will be ‘called’ Immanuel which means God with us.  So God says the name will be Jesus but he will be called Immanuel.

What he calls is our mission. Jesus mission was to take way sin form us, but his purpose was what he was called – Immanuel – God with us.  Jesus purpose was to bring us back to our father, by doing his mission – taking away our sin

When you birth something from God, he names is and gives the mission, but he also calls it for a purpose.

What are you pregnant with?

What is being birthed in you?

Then as you move into verses in the beginning of Chapter 2, God bring the magi. He will bring people into your live to confirm what is birthed. But he allows the testing of those like Herod who appear to what to help, but really want to kill, steal or destroy.

As you are in the season of birthing, find your people who protect, guide and esteem you. They help you discern the ‘herods’. Remember as you are birthing, the enemy is aborting.

But, as we continue on our journey of birthing, and listen to the Holy Spirit, he always guides us to the place where our dream is to become reality, in safety.

Read the story again, hear what God is saying to you. What is being birthed?

 

 

 

Divorce is painful, hurtful and sometimes needed.

Wait, before you panic, I am not getting a divorce from Brian. But, I think a divorce is needed.

The Bride of Christ needs a divorce from the world.

From Genesis to Revelation there is a marriage trail.

I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. (Hosea 2:19}

In the context and custom of the Bible, once you were betrothed, or engaged, it was a done deal. You were married.

For your Maker is your husband– the LORD Almighty is his name– the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. {Isaiah 54:5}

The trail in the Old Testament talks of this husband, bride: us and God and how many times we walk away.  When a bride walks away from her husband, and puts another in his place its adultery.

Think about this for a minute. We are ‘married’ to God, and the final act of marriage will be when we see him face to face, but for now, we are to act like his Bride.  This isnt’ just showing up for worship nights, or church services. Its how we are to live. As his wife.

For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. {2 Cor. 11:2}

He is jealous for us. We are betrothed. He desires us to be pure.

So just like Israel spoken of all the way through the Old Testament, who kept leaving her husband for other things, other people, other idols, we too have walked into an adulteress lifestyle with the world. We worry more about our houses, platforms and jobs than we worry about our relationship with God.

We need a marriage retreat with our Jesus.

Let’s read from Isaiah 54 – I made you. I am now your husband. My name is The LORD Who Rules Over All. I am the Holy One of Israel. I have set you free. I am the God of the whole earth.  You were like a wife who was deserted. And her heart was broken. You were like a wife who married young. And her husband sent her away. But now I am calling you to come back,” says your God. 

He is calling us to come back. To come back where He is our one and only. Where we listen to what He says. Where He speaks our identity, our destiny, our future. As a loving husband He loves us purely and wholly.

There is nothing in this world that can compare to Him. Yet we try don’t we. But its time. We need to end the relationship with a lesser thing and renew the relationship with our Bridegroom.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.  {Rev. 19:7}

 

 

 

2 Corinthians 10:5New King James Version (NKJV)

⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

How often do we take EVERY thought captive?

We often sling this verse around negative thoughts, or bad thoughts, or to push blame on someone who is struggling with any thought other than our own.

But here is what God has been teaching me, and hopefully it will help you also.

This verse tells us to take EVERY high thing (thought) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Now most of us would never think that we are thinking thoughts against God. But I want to challenge you with this. If I can think of a thing, and do it in my own power and strength, was it a God thought?

We can have very good, smart and intelligent thoughts, but is it a God thought?

Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Bring EVERY thought captive. Notice what it does not say. It doesn’t say take all negative thoughts, or take any sad thoughts, or take any mean thoughts. It says take all thoughts. ALL of them.

I have had many thoughts and plans, dreams and visions, and I take them all captive and give them to God.

I had a vision that I would lead worship. And I was leading worship at a local church, and it was good. Then God asked me; “did you think you would be sitting here at this keyboard til you died leading worship here?”

I guess I did. But you see, my thought was to lead worship, and I thought that it was finished and complete, or tied to that one location. That was my thought. God’s thought was for me to lead worship, any where. If I held God captive to my thought, when I left that church, my worship would have been finished. But God’s thought was to worship every where. My thought: worship at one location all my life. God’s thought: worship every where I take you.

I had a vision to begin a prayer room. One location. God’s vision was to take that prayer room and multiply it to many locations.  My thought: establish a place. God’s thought: establish many prayer rooms.

What am I trying to say?  I take every thought captive. I take my dreams, plans, and visions captive. I so want anything to be obedient to God’s thoughts and not my own.

If I can accomplish my thoughts without God, then I make my thoughts exalted above God’s thoughts and I hold God captive to my thoughts.

If I take ALL and EVERY thought captive and give it to God, when he gives the thought back to me, it is all about Him.  It is his thought, and it is always way better and bigger than my thought. And it is usually something that I could never do in my own strength.

Father, today I give you all my thoughts. All my plans, vision, dreams. I give you my thoughts, my sad thoughts, my hurting thoughts and my growing and building thoughts. I ask you to hold them til you want me to move on them, because I want you to be exalted, not me. I want to be amazed by You.

I was robbed. I had a vivid dream last night that left me wide awake. In this dream my purse was laying on the ground, and my wallet was next to it, laying open. “NO” I screamed, with that sinking sick feeling in my gut. When I picked up my wallet, by license was gone, all my credit cards and my debit/bank card. All gone.

In my dream my first thought was to call police, my husband, all the companies, so when I reached for my purse, I saw that my phone was also missing.

Tears.

Panic.

All my photos, my contacts, personal info. I saw in my mind’s eye, the apps like Venmo, square, photos and things I use daily, now gone into the wrong hands. All my vacation photos, pictures of my grandson, our vacation, my friends – all gone.

Trying to remind myself this was a dream, my first response was to pray protection over myself, family and to break fear and intimidation from the enemy.

As I was trying to calm myself and fall back asleep, I heard God ask me, “What do you think that dream was about?”

Me, “to be careful and not let my purse lay around?” God smiles as my sleepy response but then tells me the meaning:

People are at risk. They are being to casual with my presence, their identity and relationships.

The license speaks of identity. People are at risk of losing their identity.
The Credit Cards speak of resources. People are at risk of losing resources.
The phone speaks of contacts. People are at risk of losing connections.

We lose our identity when we give to it away to the wrong people. We are so easily swayed by the next popular person or swayed into a way of thinking that is contrary to the mind of Christ. We are to be thinking on the things of God. Philippians 4:4-9. Our identity needs to be rooted and grounded in God. Many of us think we are the prodigal son coming home, but we are the older son, already home and not realizing we have as much of God as we want. He is the one who speaks our identity. The more time we are with him, the more we know who we are.

Our finances and resources need to be stewarded with the guiding of the spirit, and not to be used for foolishness. Going back to the prodigal son, we so easily squander money on empty items. God has the finances and the resources of the Kingdom at hand, but how many of us go to God first? How many times do we waste the resources that God has provided or complain that we still need more. Is is possible we don’t know what we have?

Many think, I don’t need anyone, or a fellowship family, or teaching, but that is a mistake. No one can be isolated to function in the relational Kingdom. Thinking we don’t need each other is just going to leave you lonely. Are there times when God draws you away, yes. But it isn’t a lifestyle. The older son in the parable could have spent as much time with his Father as he wanted, but he was always to busy working. Everything the Father had, was already his, but he worked by himself as if he had nothing. His complaint and anger to his father wasn’t about the younger son coming home. His complaint was you are spending all this time and energy on the younger and I was here the whole time. But the Father responds, with I was here all the time also. If we feel like we aren’t close to God, it isn’t on his end. He is already there.

Guard your Identity.

Guard your Resources.

Guard your relationships.

Don’t let yourself be robbed.