Posted in Hiding His Word

Nothing to lose – part 2

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
May need to read original note for this to be in context: this is one of the things I felt the Lord impressed me to do and then to pass on…Prophesy! Speak the scripture over your neighborhood, your church, your household, yourself. If no one will listen speak it to the wind. As Sister Frankie said, “Don’t add to, don’t take away from. So there will be no flesh involved, just speak God’s word and start with Ezekiel 37:1-14″….The Word of the Lord will not come back void.

Ezekiel 37
The Valley of Dry Bones

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,

2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.

8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the LordGod; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.

13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,

14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lordhave spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.

Posted in Word from the Lord

Go for it…you have nothing to lose!

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

This doesn’t really seem like something profound or anything but I believe this is the word of the Lord:

“Go for it–You have nothing to lose!”

Received this word from God while in prayer during the worship service on 10/4/2009 and so I prayed this phrase. Then this exact word was given again on Saturday evening 10/10/2009 in a message by Sister Frankie Sneed as she preached at a revival service from Ezekial 37 on raising dead bones (Travelers Rest, SC revival service).

I had never spoken to anyone about this. God told her to preach it and at the end God told her to pray for me. She prayed and prophesied some things, and I came away knowing in my heart the words were from the Lord God Almighty to her to me. I know it does not really sound that clever or profound but for me, it changes everything- HALLELUJAH!!!

Posted in prayer

Fruit and fish…who can understand?

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
“All fruitfulness flows from intimacy.”

This phrase has been “burning” in me for the last few days. Where did it come from?

I was thinking about it this morning during prayer walk and it became kind of mixed into the scripture about Jesus pulling the coin out of the fishes mouth. I wondered why they seemed so intertwined? Maybe it was just the guy fishing at the pond…

Posted in Uncategorized

Fruit and Fish – who can understand?

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

“All fruitfulness flows from intimacy.”

This phrase has been “burning” in me for the last few days. Where did it come from?

I was thinking about it this morning during prayer walk and it became kind of mixed into the scripture about Jesus pulling the coin out of the fishes mouth. I wondered why they seemed so intertwined? Maybe it was just the guy fishing at the pond…

Posted in Journal

just some thoughts on being chosen and adoption

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Thoughts on being chosen –

Before the world ever existed there was God and in that moment He loved me. His love is eternal. He doesn’t just love me now, He loved me then. I am who I am because of the eternal love of God. This separates God’s love from every other love on the planet. If God has eternally loved me then His love for me is not based on my past because He loved me before I had one. It is not based on my efforts or trying to do good because He loved me before. His love for me is based on the death of His Son. It is His Son’s righteousness that makes Him love me. If God has eternally loved me then there is this anticipation by God for me. Not just for us but for me. Anticipation for me and great love for me. This love is the foundation that my destiny is built on. Before creation of the world He chose me to be holy and blameless. He picked me! Do I think He made a mistake? He picked me and it says in the scripture He’s happy about it.

Thoughts on adoption –

God predestined me. He has adopted me. Adoption is a word that in our world is used mostly as taking in a child as our own if we can’t have our own. But I feel God is saying I am a Father and I had my own Son. I had my own Son and I gave Him away so I could have you. I had my own Son and I allowed Him to suffer and gave Him away so you could be adopted. Do you get what that means? Do you know who you are? Amazing.

I am starting to get it.

Posted in prayer

Pray lest you fall

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

Well it has happened. I fell asleep in the prayer room this morning. Dozed off, nodded off…never imagined I would. Most especially didn’t imagine it since I popped up and was ready to face the day at 5am because I couldn’t sleep. So eager. There is just something about falling asleep during prayer that really humbles you. I am reminded of the disciples and their same struggle. How often I have judged them…and now I have lived it, kind of. What did Jesus say to them…pray lest you fall into temptation? What did He say to me? Pretty much the same thing the first time I woke up and the second. As I left I did so just as I imagine Peter did, determined to prove I hadn’t failed terribly and that I could overcome. Even to standing up and cutting off an ear of the enemy…acting first thinking later out of a passion to prove something. That same determination and proof— a failure as well.

Yes it happened. The temptation, the frustration, the battle, the failure. All I had to do was stay awake and pray, but I couldn’t.

Posted in prayer

Blessed are the Poor

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Have you ever just had one of those days where despite problems everything fell into place in a way that you just knew God was in control and you felt like something was going to happen? You may have to much on your plate and have not even gotten through half of your “to do” list but even still a sense of peacefulness has fallen. Looking at the clock, you wonder if time has stopped or something. Have you ever asked God to allow your steps to be His steps and to prevent you from straying from those steps…even if just for today…and then been totally surprised by His steps and that He answered your prayer? This has been my day and I am very aware that if I don’t follow exactly I will be off the path that was created. I feel urgency in my writing and in my heart.

I began the afternoon with a need to pray but not really knowing what for. I know to pray for the needs of others and the church and myself but today I sensed that this was not the day to pray for the usual. This was a different need. Since I didn’t know that need, I began praying the scriptures. I just opened my Bible randomly and began. The scripture for this time was Isaiah 61:1-3. Wow…I love Isaiah.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”

I meditated on the words anointing and poor but all my mind could see was love. Why love? Doesn’t even mention love. Maybe since I have had God’s love on my mind lately. I understand the concept of anointing and anointing for power to preach… but I began to think that maybe something like love could change a person much easier and more completely than preaching-even good preaching. (umm sorry to some of you ; )I wondered if it was necessary or helpful to be anointed to love— in a radical way? To love like God loves? Could God’s radical love flow through you if you didn’t feel particularly anointed to love? Or is everyone equally gifted in this area since after all, God is love. And what about the poor? Who are the poor? Why even call out the poor? It can’t be just an economic description although we can’t ignore that. It almost has to be the poor spiritually, the poor emotionally, the poor physically? How does God want us to take care of the poor? There are just so many. In fact, could not most people be found poor in some area of their lives…so are we not called to care for what would seem everyone? Everyone!! All of them? What is He saying?

As I finished prayer, I picked up a book that has been a source of devotion for me for the last weeks by Henri J.M. Nouwen titled Here and Now. This was part of what I read:

“Jean Vanier, the Canadian who founded a worldwide network of communities for mentally disabled people, has remarked more than once that Jesus did not say: ‘Blessed are those who care for the poor,’ but ‘Blessed are the poor.’ Simple as this remark may seem, it offers the key to the kingdom. I want to help. I want to do something for people in need. I want to offer consolation to those who are in grief and alleviate the suffering of those who are in pain. There is obviously nothing wrong with that desire. It is a noble and grace-filled desire. But unless I realize that God’s blessing is coming to me from those I want to serve, my help will be short-lived, and soon I will be ‘burned out.’ How is it possible to keep caring for the poor when the poor only get poorer? How is it possible to keep nursing the sick when they are not getting better? How can I keep consoling the dying when their deaths only bring me more grief? The answer is that they all hold a blessing for me, a blessing that I need to receive. Ministry is, first of all, receiving God’s blessing from those to whom we minister. What is this blessing? It is a glimpse of the face of God. Seeing God is what heaven is all about! We can see God in the face of Jesus, and we can see the face of Jesus in all those who need our care. Once I asked Jean Vanier: ‘How do you find the strength to see so many people each day and listen to their many problems and pains?’ He gently smiled and said: ‘They show me Jesus and give me life.’ Here lies the great mystery of Christian service. Those who serve Jesus in the poor will be fed by him whom they serve: ‘He will put on an apron, set them down at the table and wait on them’ (Luke 12:37). We so much need a blessing. The poor are waiting to bless us.”

Amazing. God put a whole new light on a piece of His Word for me; a whole new light in my heart. Is He beginning to answer my prayer and change my heart? A heart that has seen too much, heard too much and stopped really feeling some things long ago. Is He changing my skepticism, negativity and frustration with such a needy world by giving me a vision of the possibilities- the possibilities of sharing His love and sharing in His love and sharing Him? Even sharing His love with Him. Even sharing in His love by sharing Him. Strange thoughts to me.

Then it was as though God Himself were asking me these next questions…Melissa, how do you view the family that walks right past your house every day because they can’t afford the gas or the car to put it in? How do you view the homeless with their signs and cups? How do you view those that are so anxious and stressed that they won’t allow themselves to slow down and see Me even as they sit fidgeting in church? How do you view the prostitute, the drug addict, the gang member? How do you view the lonely? How do you view those in nursing homes or those in their own prisons of disease- those with Alzheimer’s or Aids? How do you view those that have just been beaten down through prejudice and hate and neglect? How do you view the housewife that seems to have it all but keeps herself so busy that she doesn’t have the time to really check her heart? Melissa, how do you view Me?

You know, I am just trying to get to the end of a very busy day and on to the next prayer meeting, but today I can hear God’s voice calling me to go by the nursing home to visit someone I haven’t checked on in a while. Someone I really only know as acquaintance but someone still so familiar to something within my soul. Because of old age and illness, I will probably never really get to know this person, but somehow we connect and she has something for me that I desperately need. I’ll leave work and make it happen and you know I honestly can’t wait because I know in my heart I am meeting Jesus there.

Isn’t it wonderful that those that a part of the world would consider profoundly lacking in some way are actually chosen by God to be bearers of a profound grace of God’s presence? Shouldn’t that give us all Hope? And as I run to that nursing home should I not be singing praises knowing that I am getting ready to have just a glimpse of the face of Jesus, my own Savior?

You know, I don’t have it together so please, please don’t think that I even think I do because here is the real test that is yet to be taken. If I ever pass it maybe then I will know for sure I have a revelation and understanding of a love that has changed me. Radical true love…God’s love flowing in me and through me.

The test- If I knew that Jesus was not going to be there today and it was just going to be a lonely lady in a tattered and soiled nightgown that would cling to me physically in desperation and cry out horribly when I leave. If I knew she would never ever remember my visit or my name (on this earth or in the next), would I still drop everything, sing praises, and go?

Posted in Journal

Seek HIM First!!

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Last week I wrote these words in an email to someone….

“… I am going to a Morningstar conference this week…not to be fed although I might be in some way. I am going mostly because I support Heidi Baker and the work that she does through Iris Ministries and I want nothing more than to go and minister with her in Mozambique for a month, hopefully soon. God put this ministry on my heart…I don’t know why but He definitely did it to the point that it has become one of the desires of my heart. He in bringing Heidi to Charlotte and so I go. I will hear her message and see what God is doing there and in my life. Will I be fed? Probably God will feed me in a more unexpected way but I don’t know. God is God and He can do what He wants. I know this, God has set this one up so I am just going to sit back and see what He does.”

well this is what God did…

Very first minute of the conference this cute little girl comes to me excited because her name is also Melissa. She asks me “of all those that are speaking this weekend who do you most want to hear from?” Without hesitation I said, “Heidi Baker!!!” Oh! Heart revealed!! as those words escaped my heart and rolled off my tongue. I immediately came under conviction, but too late. HE IS A JEALOUS GOD! Had my heart been where God wants it, I would have wanted to hear from Him. Too late! Couldn’t take back those words no matter how much I wanted to. No use even trying. I felt almost sick and I am pretty sure I felt His heartache. The musicians started singing a song that said God doesn’t get disappointed in you. Was this true? Sure felt like disappointment. I had failed and repentance was my only option and I did repent and I cried out to a God that is so merciful to me and yet I knew that sometimes there is just a price. Too hard on myself? I’m not convinced.

In the excerpt above I said that God would probably feed me in a more unexpected way. Was I being fed through discipline? If so, this wasn’t the cozy comfort meal I thought I was going to get. From that first moment and then all weekend God spoke about setting up idols. Idols in people like Heidi Baker and idols also in the things going on around me. Although the seeking for “more” may be great, I heard Him say to check myself in things going on around me during this conference…things such as prophecy and miracles and healing; things such as the books I buy and read and even the worship music. I felt God say things may be good and even be of Him, but for me not to make the same mistake twice….”seek Me first in all things” and I remembered Pastor Sammy’s teaching that some of these things are signs following after and I understood that even the music, which we many times say leads us into worship, can only lead as it follows a heart that is in the right place of seeking Him first.

Heidi Baker never came. Because of schedule conflicts her time of ministry was changed to a conference for this upcoming week. Right or wrong, Morningstar never told this until the very end. But as God dealt with my heart, I knew somewhere deep within and even beyond understanding in a way I can write about.

Very early yesterday morning I left the conference. I was confused and feeling very much “put in my place.” Honestly, I was also disappointed and empty and sad and almost desperate. My experience was not at all the refreshment I sought so I am left to wonder at what the Lord is doing. I know in my mind that the Father’s discipline and His love cannot be separated and I do so want to know His love in my heart. I have the option to go to some of the night services over the next couple of days to see Heidi Baker and hear her message on God’s love. I will opt out for reasons that have nothing to do with any offense or even disappointment and continue with my regular life and work schedule. Somehow I feel I have already heard what Heidi will say at the conference and would even say to me if I could speak to her one on one, SEEK HIM FIRST!!!! and here I have heard it from God Himself.

Posted in prayer

Don’t abandon ship; someone has to throw the life-preservers

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Interesting things have been happening in prayer these days. God has spoken about revelation driven prayer and hearing His voice through the things that He brings to my mind during prayer time. I have been given confidence that some things I have for so long excused as just my imaginations are one of the ways He uses to speak to me. This was made very clear for me during our prayer meeting yesterday.

We came into prayer last night feeling very discouraged. Everyone. We were tired and everything seemed the same old, same old. Even our conversation was frankly boring. Someone asked God to help the people get into his Word (fairly common prayer, I guess) but just like that I heard God say, “You first.” It was so clear that it couldn’t be ignored so I immediately relayed what I heard. We opened our Bibles and began to pray the scriptures. During this time we asked God to show us what was on His heart. To have us pray His heart, His prayers. We have said this prayer many times before too but yesterday things just were different.

Immediately I saw the hill behind the church and from the very top of the very tallest tree on down all I could see was the blood of Jesus running down it like rivers. Maybe more rushing down it and the blood was covering absolutely everything in its path. Every corner, every crevice…everything. I began praying this scene and declaring this scene but admittedly I started feeling awkward because it was a different kind of prayer for me and I became aware of those around me and so I stopped, it ceased – the prayer and the flow of what I had been seeing. I knew that I had stopped what God was trying to do.

But toward the middle of our time I was asking God for salvations and He gave another “scene.” Don’t you just love second chances? I knew immediately that it was connected to the the Full Flame Evangelism course (Reinhard Bonnke). In that course we watched a short movie about a group of people on a ship that ran across some that were overboard. The message was that people are drowning and we have the ability to rescue them but we each must decide if we will risk our own lives to do so or not by jumping in. What God gave me was just a bit different though…

There was a ship with many, many people beside it in the water. People were floating around and drowning but it was as though they were very comfortable and didn’t know that they were drowning. There were a few that were fighting for their lives but they were for the most part ignored by those floating. Those floating had no idea they were getting ready to die. Some people were still on the ship and they each had a stock of life preservers. When they could get someone’s attention, they were throwing them out into the water and then dragging them into the boat to safety. Those aboard the ship faced two obstacles. They had to find a way to get the people to pay enough attention so they could warn them of their impending death and they had to avoid the lure of jumping into the water themselves. See no one fell off the ship. There were no problems with the ship. The problem was that the people were lured to jump. Some had jumped with good intentions of helping but for most something of the water had enticed them and I heard God say to me, “Don’t abandon ship. Someone has to throw the life preservers.”

Just like that discouragement was gone and I settled into what I had been asked to do in prayer and intercession…and definitely not feeling the same old, same old.

Posted in Journal

UNCLE!!!!

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

Yesterday our pastor asked if we really wanted to follow Jesus. “Yes” Well, now who wouldn’t say that? Then Pastor hit us with this- did we really want to follow Him if it meant Calvary? “Yes, Amen!” I said, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth the weight of those same words were on me and that weight is heavy. hmmm Calvary means death. I knew this and I believed that I believed what I said. Then not five minutes after the service ended I chose to be offended by a criticism; which led to a feeling of discouragement and an unexplainable loneliness that I allowed to ruin the peaceful day I had planned; which led to a pity party and then while wallowing (that is an ugly image but have to admit, accurate) I started feeling badly from the cold I thought for sure I was over. I was sad and my feelings hurt, I was tired of coughing and I was just so lonely and discouraged—and in an instant it was as though if anyone were listening I would have screamed “UNCLE!!!! I can’t even handle a cold, how can I handle Calvary?”

…and then it dawned on me. He knows! He knows I am not in any way skilled at climbing any step of this mountain. He knows…so He says “follow” which means He is right in front of me. I started picturing God far enough ahead on the path that I can see the view but if I am not careful in my pace and attention as He travels ahead I might allow a branch to snap back and hit me in the face. That will definitely get my attention. But I also picture God close enough to grab my hand and pull me up some of these steeper inclines when I stumble. Even for lack of attention and especially at times when I cry “uncle!”