If anyone knows Melissa…

Remember that game Chutes and Ladders. I think I hit that really big chute and I went about thirty or forty steps backwards. Just thankful I am not all the way at the very beginning of the game.

God has been speaking to me over the last three weeks about the sin of making idols.

He has not been speaking softly. There is an urgency and a strictness. I think I understand the fear of the Lord better now. God’s correction for me while sometimes harsh has still been sweet. In His correction I have never felt so loved and valued as a daughter. Weird sounding maybe to know that He loves me through His hand of discipline because it has been painful. More painful because I know it was brought on by my own doing and my choice to ignore God’s warnings. Over the last years, I have had more than my share of chances to humble myself and repent (turn away from this sin, my sin) of making idols of some of the people in my life. I insisted on doing some things my way. Sooo… My Father sent someone who I very much respect but even that one too I had on a pedestal… with a Word for me. Though the Words were few, my spirit heard much. It cut deeply and yet I know because of her obedience I will never be the same. I really do want to get it right.

Yes, I went down the chute and I feel like I have been “put in my place” yet no longer very sure of my place in this natural world. I will choose to stand on the promise that God will use it all for His purposes. This was the Word of the Lord to me:

Thus say’s the Lord God Almighty…My Name is Jealous!!! My Spirit who dwells within you yearns jealously for you to be Mine..all Mine..completely Mine. I will not share you with another…another man…another woman…and especially the old you.

“I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. Isaiah 42:8

Put off the old man and his deeds..put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our minds. Ephesians 4:22-24

Fact: Every single person who ever lived is going to be bodily resurrected. Some to an eternal state of blessedness and purpose, where all sickness, pain, suffering and death is forever banished. The others into an eternal place of suffering where there is no hope or escape. Jesus Christ and the cross is the deciding factor…you choose!!

Having [the same] hope in God which these themselves hold and look for, that there is to be a resurrection both of the righteous and the unrighteous (the just and the unjust). Acts 24:15(Amplified)

Almost as terrifying to me are my thoughts that if I have chosen Jesus Christ and the cross why do I ever hesitate or choose to remain silent or do nothing to share Him and His love with those that face a place of eternal suffering? Here too I have a choice to which I will one day answer.

My prayer today- that my choices will Glorify Jesus and that the Lamb would receive the reward of His suffering… through me!!!

God is so good. He is our healer, provider and our Savior.

Today at the food pantry there were many prayer requests for healing of backs, legs, and feet. Lots using canes, braces and walkers and having balance issues. One lady had suffered a fall over the weekend and broken her foot and glasses and almost fell several times while I was with her. Today, I stood in the hallway and greeted every person that walked in and I was just astonished at the similarities that seemed to be among this particular group. I prayed some prayers today that some may think are a bit bold but I PRAISE GOD because I believe with all my heart that God healed as we prayed and asked Him.

A lady that I have prayed with every month and grown quite fond of came. She had some major breathing and mobility problems and I noticed that she wasn’t using her inhaler. When I asked her about it, she testified that over the course of the few months she has been coming and receiving prayer that her breathing issue has cleared up and she is now able to get around-and NOW she is losing weight. She glowed and was so excited. I was too. PRAISE THE LORD, OUR HEALER. He is able and He is willing.

Another lady testified that after prayer last month she got a job. PRAISE THE LORD, OUR PROVIDER.

And most importantly and most exciting of all one of the ladies praying today led someone to the Lord. PRAISE THE LORD, HE IS OUR SAVIOR.

God loves each of us so much. I stand amazed that even on a rainy, humid, busy Tuesday He could touch me by touching those I have grown to love so much and bless me that I could be around as He demonstrates His power, grace and love to them— changing their lives—and changing mine. I love Him so : )

Parts of this came as a good and timely Word for me…maybe something in this is for you too.

Others May, You May Not

by G.D. Watson (1845-1924)

If God has called you to be really like Christ in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you such demands of obedience, that He will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.Others can brag on themselves, and their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His glory, which can be produced only in the shade.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely God will keep you poor because he wants you to have something far better than gold and that is a helpless dependence on Him; that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day – out of an unseen treasury.

God will let others be great, but He will keep you small. He will let others do a great work for Him and get credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when He comes.

The Holy Spirit will put strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do what He pleases with His own, and He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle you in His dealing with you. He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

Now, when you are so possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this particular personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

Why is it that consistently those persecuted for faith show in their lives and speak in ways that show they simply seem to love the Lord a lot more because of it?

I read something last night in the Voice of Martyrs magazine that really spoke to my heart. It has to do with suffering – something we prefer to avoid yet we all are either going through a trying time or we will and what he said gave me some real perspective.

This comes from a 27 year old Egyptian believer named Mohammed Hegazy. Quoting from the article.

“He and his wife are Christians who converted from Islam…After becoming a Christian 11 years ago, Hegazy was beaten regularly by his father until he moved out of the house two years later. In addition, he was tortured several times by Egyptian police. They tied a blindfold around his eyes, hung him upside down by ropes, beat him and shocked him with electric batons trying to gather information about other Christians…Islamic religious leaders have called for his death. Hegazy’s house was burned to the ground, and his family is now in hiding…when asked his thoughts on what the Apostle Paul calls tribulations, Hegazy told us, “I think that suffering is a most beautiful part of the Christian faith because Christianity without pain, without suffering, without hard times is like ready made food (fast food). There’s nothing true in it. It’s very superficial, very shallow””

“We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.” Acts 14:22

Keep pressing into Him and His kingdom.

“Uzzah put out his hand to steady the Ark.” (2 Samuel 6:6)

Elmer Towns tells of ten days of revival at Liberty University when one student began confessing his sins. The Lord came and they were in divine activity for ten days and nights with no one wanting to go from the meeting. Until– another student stood up and was boastful about his former sins…..the Holy Spirit left, and it ended. One touch of the hand of flesh and He was gone.

WHOA! I can’t even get words out to explain what this did to me when I read it. I wonder how often and in how many ways I put my hand out to “steady the Ark” as Uzzah did. How often am I boastful and full of flesh, even in what seems good things? Convicting…only word I can find.

So thankful for God’s grace today.

When I pray, I am expecting miracles, gifts of healing and demonstrations of God’s power! I believe God likes a people who grab hold of the Word of God and use it like a sword!

Jesus spoke the Word – and kingdom things happened! There is a word of healing – against sickness, disease and fear. He has already spoken the word that brought you healing. The promise has already gone forth! Strengthen yourself. Be free from every bit of oppression! Here is some of the scripture that I am praying this week…

Joshua 24:14, 15; Isaiah 1:5-6, John 5:1-9, John 7:23; Heb. 12:4-13; also, Isaiah 35:3-4 (NIV) “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’”

I lift up my hands in the sanctuary and I bless You, Lord! I make straight paths for my feet – right to Your throne of grace. In Your name alone I will lift up my hands. I am strong in the Lord and full of courage and boldness, for my hope is in You. Hear me, Lord, as I call out to You. Thank You for this church, this place of grace that You have brought me to. Thank You for restoring me and making me whole. I have chosen for myself that I will fear You and serve You, the Lord all the days of my life. I choose life, healing, wholeness, restoration, and revival. I proclaim that You, my God have come with strength and You will save me to the uttermost!
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Take these scriptures and declarations and pray with strength!!! Take the power of God and storm the gates of oppression, sickness, poverty.

When I was a young girl during those times when I just needed to cry and to cry out to the Lord, I would run out and sit in the midst of the cotton field behind our house. From there in the distance I could see the mountain ranges and I would look out toward them and repeat Psalm 121 over and over. It was a passage that God put into my heart right after my dad died and I always felt like it was special and just for me. I would insert my name into it and meditate on it. Like a rainbow was God’s promise to Noah, to this day every time I see a mountain I am reminded of this passage – His promise to me. God met me in that cotton field and gave me great comfort during those times of confusion, despair and loneliness…It still does.

I lift up my eyes to the hills- Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip –
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you
The LORD is your shade at your right hand;
The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm – He will watch over your life;
The LORD will watch over your coming and going
Both now and forevermore.

~ Psalm 121

Back in the early 90’s I was a part of a group that did the Henry Blackaby course on knowing and doing the will of God, titled Experiencing God. I remember it was an awesome teaching. For some reason, I pulled the book out the other day to take a look and found myself learning again some of the lessons of knowing and doing the will of God. I want to share some of what God has been re-emphasizing to me and what He is doing in my life. Knowing and doing the will of God is a life long encounter because the Lord desires a relationship with me, not some type of arrangement based on methods and formulas. There are some truths He gives to help that only fully work in the context of relationship. One of those truths is God is always at work around us. Jesus never asked the Father what His will was rather, He always looked for what the Father was doing and joined Him (John 5:19-20). So it is not God’s highest for me to seek His will for my life, but rather ask Him to reveal to me what He is doing so I can join Him. In what He reveals to me is the will of God for me. That is the way Jesus did it.

Paul said, “Find out what pleases the Lord” (Eph. 5:10). In terms of doing the will of God I can know some of what pleases Him. He is pleased with what He is doing not what I am doing. I can have and believe I did have a vision from Him (knowing the will of God), but that does not mean I am going about accomplishing it in the way that pleases Him. I have to continually look at what He is doing and seek to do that with Him. Jesus said, “We get life from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). I noted that it says proceeds not proceeded; it is what He is saying not necessarily what He said. Well guess it really is His way or the highway, the highway being frustration, added expense, delay, misunderstanding. And maybe it really can be an actual highway at times as one may walk away from a vision or a ministry believing it was never His will or intent in the first place.

I have come to that place recently in my own life…with the vision God gave me for some areas of ministry and my life. I know the vision is from the heart of the Father, but almost everything I have done in the past two years has not worked. I have worked and worked and found myself in a place of such frustration with all the doing that was not working that I really started to question the vision and if I had ever even heard God in the first place. Probably anyone that has experienced such a thing knows that is not a good place to be. After a lot of searching I have finally settled in my heart that it is the way I have been attempting to do the will of God and I have settled in my heart that trying so hard to do things my way was not pleasing to Him.

God is working, but He is not doing what I thought He would or should be doing and on my timetable. Blackaby calls this the crisis of belief and says that “God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that require both faith and action.” Well, I have been in full-blown crisis. I have been at this place before in my life and just like way back then…I wanted to just run away from it all. Having been a runner in my earlier years though, I know that cost is way, way too high. So I have had to take a hard look at myself and my works and make some decisions. Am I going to continue down the highway of frustration or shall I stop and ask the Lord for a fresh perspective, for a fresh proceeding Word? I know that in retrospect that looks like a no-brainer, but in the heat of the moment and what has been clearly a battle, it has been very difficult. I was afraid if I did the vision would die, but I found that the pain of continuing is greater than the pain of risking failure. I had to surrender. God being God….the moment I surrendered He began to show me some of what He was doing and that I needed to shift my strategy to that. Shifting my strategy meant also though a shift in me. Here in a place of surrender I found that I had spent alot of energy once again trying to blame my failure on so many other things and people around me, and even God… but really…it was me. It is a lesson I go over and over in my life. Will I ever learn? His way is not always the easier and it may require major change on my part but it is always the only way.

As Blackaby states, “You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.”

So I have to continually make adjustments in my life to join God in what He is doing by His design. I am learning that knowing and doing the will of God really is a life long encounter and one of the ways I grow in relationship with Him is by looking to what He is doing and adjusting myself to Him. Now…God is calling me to stop and ask Him for a fresh perspective, for a fresh proceeding word and if I ever needed such a word, it is right now.

I pray such silly prayers sometimes! “God, is that Your will for ME!” Never mind that the Word of God says it is His will for me.” Or how about this one…”Lord, it’s not fair! You are asking me to do things I can’t do.” I think God laughs!

I have been going through a season where it seems almost everything in me wants to see healing flow through my prayers and my hands. I see the sick and those in bondage and it is as though I enter into their pain and I have no other focus than to share the LIFE and the HOPE that God has given me. The Bible says that healing is only one of the signs that will follow believers. Being a believer…I just take these Words literally..but of course, there is someone who hates healing and works in all of our minds to make sure we NEVER walk in that. For most of my life I was taught this gift had passed and wasn’t for this generation. Healing and a desire to see people healed and delivered of physical and emotional and spiritual wounds is nevertheless ingrained in the depths of my soul…as though it had always been there. I have fought constant doubts and questions as to whether this was for me. How could I believe in and desire something that so many don’t. Am I just rebellious? My thoughts and emotions around this have been like floating balls in the water. I try to push it under and it goes down briefly but then quickly rises back to the surface. I questioned my heart. I questioned my motives. I questioned my character. Shouldn’t I focus on salvation instead of signs that lead to salvation? Oh, it went on and on.

Then, someone prayed for me and as he prayed for God’s will to come forth in my life, I fell into pieces. With each tear, it was as though all the questions, the sorrow, the doubt, all that I didn’t understand and could never explain fell out of me in a heap of pieces as well. When the tears stopped I actually did feel lighter and hopeful but I was still very unsure of what the Holy Spirit was doing within me beyond just having a need for a good cry. Since that prayer though I have felt God’s direction and most especially over the weekend as He directed me to a chapter in the Bible, Romans 4.

I have read and reread this passage in many versions. Here are portions of it from the Message Bible:

“The story we are given is a God-story not an Abraham-story.”
“Abraham entered into what God was doing for him and THAT was the turning point.”

“the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man”

“When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he WOULD do.”

“He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what He had promised.”

The Word does not come back void and somewhere in these last days something has clicked. A lightbulb came on! Today I stop apologizing for and tiptoeing around my beliefs and my desires. I stop worrying about how to explain who I have become or what God has promised. I am plunging into what He has placed in my life because it isn’t about me and my ability, or lack of. It is all about God and souls. Healing IS His idea. His idea to lead the unbeliever to Him. I didn’t make it up or even put the desire into my own heart. It is His desire residing in my heart!!!

What God put in my heart will come to pass. Of course, I can’t do it and that’s how I know it is God! And isn’t it wondeful that I don’t have to do anything except in my inability, just believe anyway? (Read Romans 4) Just like God changed Sarah so that she could birth her baby, Isaac, God can do whatever is necessary in me, so that I can birth HIS dream, HIS promise; that which can not be done in the natural but MUST come from the Spirit. It is ALL ABOUT HIM!