Posted in Journal

random thoughts re: Tongues and where I am in my walk today

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
When I think about praying in the Spirit I picture it as entering into the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit and it makes sense to me that God would provide this place of refuge. A place where evil can’t abide. A place where evil can’t even comprehend from the vantage point of the outside. Because of the blood of Jesus and the new covenant I am allowed to go there every single moment of every single day if I so desire. It is a great and magnificent gift and it is given to all who ask.

Why do I pray in the spirit? I pray in the Spirit when I am hungry and I am fed on the Word that is in my heart. I pray in the Spirit when I am in bondage and I am set free. I pray in the Spirit when I am tired and I am revived. I pray in the Spirit when I can’t focus and I am given direction. I pray in the Spirit when I am sick and I am healed. I pray in the Spirit when I am confused and I am taught. I pray in the Spirit when I am lonely and I am given company. I pray in the Spirit when my sin has exposed me and I am given new clothing. I pray in the Spirit when I don’t know how to pray or who to pray for and the intercessions of Jesus are revealed. I pray in the Spirit when I feel I don’t have enough faith for what I ask and I am given a measure of His faith. I pray in the Spirit when I can’t feel and I am given burdens. I pray in the Spirit when I just don’t care and I am given travail. I pray in the Spirit when I don’t know what else to do and I am given a call and sent forth. That is some of why I pray in the Spirit. For all who would question this beautiful form of intimacy I would be interested to know if they question as someone who has not experienced it and therefore doesn’t believe or someone that has experienced it and changed their mind. I can’t imagine getting through my everyday life without this form of prayer.

I came upon this gift as someone that had no understanding of it for today. When I first spoke in tongues I was in my dining room and afterward asked God that if my speaking in tongues was demonic or even wrong as I had been taught throughout my life, that He just take me home. I wanted to die rather than do anything else against His will. I called the person whose sermon I was listening to when I was Baptized and given the gift of tongues. God is good and He knows exactly what we need….Little did I know that the very person that led me into the Baptism was a former Baptist preacher – now an AG pastor http://www.raleighfirst.org – that experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and subsequently had to give up much that he had known (including his church) because of what God did in his life that day.

So as not to sound too contradictory, how could I receive such a gift when I had not asked for it specifically. Here is what I believe-I asked for more of God. Period. As much as He wanted to give to me without setting any of my own conditions one of which was to consider the limitations of my own understanding. Often when I find myself in situations that are foreign to me or uncomfortable I have to remind myself that I asked and He gave. Isn’t it amazing that many times as I ask without conditions and He gives without limitations. awesome!

I think that people prayed in tongues ALOT in the early church. It wasn’t few and far between otherwise why would they need to be instructed in how to have order during corporate services.

I wonder sometimes, could the experience of Acts where they all heard their own language have been a gift of speaking but also a gift of hearing? I believe that they all did speak in the tongue that the Holy Spirit gave them…gift of speaking. It was a language that was and is between the speaker and the Holy Spirit but I believe that each person in attendance because the Holy Spirit so desired was given the ability to hear those same words of the Holy Spirit with their own ears…just as we can hear sometimes what He is saying through someone if the Spirit desires (maybe like a corporate gift of interpretation)…gift of hearing. Just my thoughts and kind of how I envision it. I mean I don’t see them all speaking different languages at the same time but if they all spoke one language (of the Spirit) and each person heard.

Also speaking in tongues and praying in tongues are they basically the same thing but used for two different purposes and yet the same purpose? To edify oneself is not a bad thing and is needed. If everyone built themselves up then corporate edification would not be such a struggle. I believe it is our responsibility to edify ourselves so that when we come together corporately we are flowing in unity with the Body. I understand this struggle and I believe that is where so many get into a bind because they expect to get their personal edification during corporate times of worship and therefore we never get to worship in that totally unified way. I believe that people began distinguishing tongues as a “prayer language” to make it sound a little more acceptable to non pentecostals. The language of the Holy Spirit is His language regardless of where spoken. It sounds different to each of us if we are listening because we aren’t in that secret place. In that place when others are speaking to their father through the Spirit it is not something you even question.

Posted in Journal

Contemplating what draws me

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Contemplating how to answer the following two questions: What draws me closer to God? What draws me away from Him? My answers so far…going to have to think on this a bit.

1) What draws me closer to God?
-The Bible but most specifically Isaiah 58
-silence
-periods of set aside time for prayer/study of the Word
-well performed worship music (all types)
-early mornings
-eagles
-walking alone, especially on Hatteras Island in the Fall
-family reunions
-memories of my grandfather
-uncommitted hours with nothing to do
2) What draws me away from God?
-television
-noise (background noise) like to work in silence
-too much internet
-overeating
-busyness (will have to expand on that)
-too many plans
-shopping
-ruminations
Will update some later.

Posted in Journal

Distractions

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Pastor Sammy’s sermon today reminded me of the following. I have this written in my Bible (don’t remember where I heard so I can’t document author/speaker):

“One of the hardest tests that we must pass if we are going to fulfill our ultimate calling is to not get distracted by all the other things that God is doing. God is doing many wonderful things today, but it is not possible for us to be involved in all of them. It is often difficult to resist joining another successful move of God, especially when well-meaning people often make others think that they are missing God if they do not join that movement. We must learn to give ourselves only to what God has called us to do.”

I am blessed to have women in my life that value accountability. Very, very often they remind me to avoid distractions, which come in many forms. To keep my eyes on the vision He gave me…not to look to either side, but just straight ahead.

Posted in Journal

The Glory and the Burden of God

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

Saturday during my weekly prayer walk I was blown away by the Glory of GOD!! After a time of difficult prayer and pressing in as best as I know how -I asked God, as Moses asked, to show me His glory. I found myself remembering the Lord’s response to Moses’ request, “I will make all my goodness pass before you.” God summed up His glory with one word – goodness. God’s glory and goodness the same?? hmmmm. As I continued walking, I began thinking about the account in Genesis of how God with each creation declared “it is good” and with the creation of man declared “it is very good.” I heard God say in my spirit, “My glory, my goodness is all around if you see with open eyes.” I could say I opened my eyes but I believe actually God opened them because the praise that was birthed in me and what I saw in and through that praise for the remainder of the walk was like nothing I have ever experienced…an intense mixture of song and sorrow. Each flower, smell, sound, each person I passed or prayed for seemed to just shine through the eyes and ears, well– really all the senses of my spirit with a different kind of beauty. I found myself praising like never before for even the rocks and the weeds. But then each thing that I praised God for, the very same creations that shone with such glory, I saw also reflected a burden that almost ripped my heart to shreds. I knew it as a burden that could only have been His.

This was Saturday morning. It was July 4th and as I walked I was able to see those I considered the best of the best as I watched people giving up a holiday morning to joyfully work behind the scenes for the Lord. I saw the glory as if it were clothing them and it brought rejoicing to my heart. Almost immediately though my thoughts and prayers were taken to one of God’s creations that at that same moment in time was only known to me as a serial killer…terrorizing a neighborhood, and my own family- killing their friends. I considered this man probably the worst of the worst and yet right there I was faced with the truth that God had declared him at creation as good. God loved and died for him just as much as for the one I labeled “best.” I had to lay aside my need for understanding and declare in unison with God that what He had created in each was equally good. I found myself begging for his life to be spared and for the salvation of his soul more than I was even asking God for an end to the violence. The Glory of God and the burdens of God are not exclusive. The Glory of God is GOOD but it also carries a weight that is offensive to my natural mind and so it was easier to try to separate them.

I have been fasting and praying for months, asking for a burden for souls and here it was quite suddenly and unexpectedly intermingled with God’s glory like the blackberry bushes next to the pond…you can see the berries from a distance so you know they are beautiful and you know that they are probably sweet but you have to get through the thorns of the same bush to experience them in all the ways God intends…even the thorns are His creation with a purpose and GOOD, a burden necessary for the Glory.

Still blown away : )

Posted in Journal

It’s not about me

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

While I was reading the latest blogpost by Evangelist Daniel Kolenda he quoted something that just struck me and I really liked it and I wanted to share with you guys:

Francis Schaeffer said, “Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.”

Reminded me of the fight we sometimes give our church leadership because we resist change and want things our way (control) and the way that is in our particular comfort zone instead of looking at those that are coming in and in need of salvation and saying preach the gospel any way the Lord leads, use any type of music that will stir their souls, use any format that will help bring them to Christ because truly “it is not about me.”

Posted in Journal

picking and choosing

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

part of what I have been mulling over and blogging about today…

…In Mark 16:17-18 besides tongues, it also speaks of believers casting out demons and healing the sick (yeah I know, it talks about snakes and poison too : ) Says that they WILL cast out demons and they WILL heal the sick. These were the words of Jesus right before He was taken up to heaven. That alone makes me want to really get them into my heart. So it makes me wonder why I (and can only speak for myself here) having such great confidence in the gift of tongues have not started walking with that same measure of faith regarding healing and deliverance? There I go picking and choosing again…

Posted in Journal

The Blessing of Prayer

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

As I reflect on the changes that have occurred in my life since I came into this season of prayer I find myself weeping out of gratitude and amazement.  I could never have imagined all that has happened and I find it hard to give it language.   The woman here today is not the person that said “yes, Lord” ten months ago.  God has been busy.

I won’t lie.  This has not always been a fun season of life.  I’ve never cried so much, nor felt so lonely, nor felt so much like my very life was being sucked out of me with each passing moment in prayer.  I know that sounds negative, but it is truth.  I should have anticipated a breaking of sorts and the Lord knows I needed it but I didn’t understand the entirety of what I signed up for.

I came to the prayer room thinking I had it somewhat together.  I came healed of extreme fears.  After years of having none, I came with lots of friends.   I thrived on knowing and being known.  God had healed me and given me what I thought was the desire of my heart but then God asked me if I loved Him enough to give it all back and allow Him to show me true desire.  In asking me into the prayer room, He took me out of the excitement and comfort of the social bonding that happened for me in the sanctuary setting and that had honestly become a distraction to my worship.

Clearly God was not impressed by my need for many friends.  During these months, He has wanted me mostly to Himself.  God has shown me where I created idols out of friendships and leadership.  One by one false idols have been stripped away and I found myself in a place that was lonely and barren.  It was there though that God showed me that my greatest issue was that I still had a deep fear of rejection by Him and that I had incredible animosity against Him.  I didn’t really trust God.  Actually most things I struggle with have roots in this distrust.  Is God really who He says He is?  Will He really do everything He has promised?  Can He really restore, even what has died?  Can I really give Him my whole life?  That God loves me enough to ask me to change has transformed my life.  God has proven faithful time and again to encourage me, answer my many questions and to show me how much He really likes the ME that He created.

In saying yes…I signed up for a life that is different and wholly other than what the world thinks of as a successful life.  I didn’t know that my life would be “ruined.”  I didn’t know that I would have, for the remainder of my days, an unsatisfied ache.  I didn’t know that I was preparing for the last days and the return of my Savior (which was one of my biggest shocks).  I didn’t know that to say yes meant that I could be blessed with the deeper things of God during this life and the one to come and to say no and lock myself behind my safe religious traditions meant risking my heart growing cold to those deeper things.  (Not that I would be separated from God’s love but that I would close the door to greater awakening and deeper revelations that He has prepared for me.  I don’t know about you but I want the deep…same old, same old doesn’t work anymore.)  I didn’t know that this radical, fasted lifestyle would sometimes be messy; that it meant eating less, spending less, sleeping less so I could get up or stay up for prayer.  I didn’t realize that my pursuits would disrupt the lives of those around me.   I didn’t know that some would be so offended by my prayer life and or that they might think I had gone crazy.  That my credibility would be challenged.   Jesus said that we would be reviled because He was reviled but in return we would have what can’t be taken away…I didn’t understand what couldn’t be taken away was knowledge of this beautiful Man.  I didn’t know that it would be possible to walk in power and authority or that even the smallest efforts of giving, fasting and praying could unlock my heart.   I didn’t know that the cost would be great but the reward far, far greater.

Here I go weeping again…

It has been hard to give adequate language to everything I feel but it boils down to this…I have fallen in love with Jesus Christ and He’s bid me come and die so that I may actually live.  I said yes and embarked on a journey to spend eternity experiencing Him and His love and seeking out a comprehension of God and His Glory.  What can be greater?

What do you say when God asks to take you to a place of death to self only to realize that what will rise from the ashes is a hunger that can never be satisfied by anything less than the presence of the Lord?  What if He asks you to persevere?  What if He asks you, as He did me… “If you have to contend for the next twenty years before seeing your ministry fulfilled…will you still contend?  Will you still go for it?”  or, “If I send one hundred people into the prayer room next week, will you pray less?”  Wow…like the disciples so long ago the words that came out of my own mouth put the last ten months into perspective, if just for me.… “This is who I am and it is all I know anymore.”

Even though I have often been in barren and lonely places, God has shown me that I am most definitely not alone.  There are groups of hungry people coming together in this church and all over the world. They are people God has awakened and He is working in their hearts and lives. I find myself in an army on fire and desperate for the things of God and an army willing to pay the price to see it all come to pass.  This is not something we invented.   God gave this call and this desire and I believe He is calling each of us…He really is.

Posted in Journal

Lone Goose

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

There is a lone goose on the Life Church property. I noticed it in our field during our prayer walk last Saturday. I told Linda, my prayer partner, that we needed to pray for someone that was grieving the loss of their mate, although I didn’t know who. I knew though that geese mate for life so you usually see them in pairs. Even if one is left behind because of injury the other will stay instead of moving on with the flock. This goose was just standing there. Didn’t move or anything. So we prayed. It was still there yesterday.

Several years ago Busch Gardens in Williamsburg invited Fabio to attend the opening of a new roller coaster called Apollo’s Chariot. Fabio was dressed up as Apollo with a coaster full of goddesses dressed in white. During that first ride Fabio was hit in the face by a goose (or Fabio hit a goose). It sent him to the hospital…it killed the goose. National news. What probably didn’t hit the national news though was that in the next days another goose started exhibiting odd behavior just outside the park. Park officials had to have it removed to assure the safety of the guests. They tried putting it elsewhere. It died shortly after. It was widely held belief that this goose was the mate grieving it’s loss.

This lone goose makes me sad and touches my heart. This morning I was thinking of the goose but this time in a little different way. I saw the goose and I saw Jesus standing out in that field all alone grieving and waiting for us (His church, His bride) to return to Him.

Posted in Hiding His Word

thoughts on Philippians 1 and 2

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

LOVE- Paul walked in love. Not love as we sometimes know it but I think love as Jesus defined it and walked. Not only did he walk in this love though, he hoped and expected that we should walk in that love as well. Just as Christ loved us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul loved us (each of us/the church-you can tell that from what he writes) and expected that love in return…but considered that when he didn’t get it to have entered into the suffering of Christ. He had relationship with God so intimate that He could be a true empty vessel for Christ to show love but also to experience pain for His cause. What kind of love did Jesus walk? That question to myself took me straight to 1 Corinthians 13 where that love is defined. We have read it hundreds of times but this time I read it in the Amplified Bible and where I have often almost patted myself on the back thinking I had this love thing down pat. I got to these next verses and there I found conviction. vs. 5 Love (Gods love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. Then vs. 7 Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening] How to walk in Christ no matter what. You know for the words “Grace and Peace” the Amplified Bible says “Grace (favor and blessing) to you and [heart] peace from God our Father the the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).” I liked that and am really learning a lot from the Amplified during this season of my life. Anyway, I think if the church could walk in true love…the Divine Love of Jesus Christ and our Father…then we would have NO LIMITS. It is the greatest commandment. I believe that the presence of God and God’s glory will be manifested when we are sitting in unity with each other and are vessels of that Divine Love both inside but also outside of our four walls. Then we will see miracles, signs, wonders, revelation, obedience, deep relationship, true freedom and incredible manifestations as an everyday occurrence. We will not look on ourselves proudly or boast in our sufferings but look on our sufferings as the ultimate act of worship for our Lord. WOW! I would like to experience such a church.

FEAR – There is good fear and not so good fear. Fear of the Lord is essential. In Hebrew one definition of fear was AWE. I use the word awesome all the time but have I really experienced awe. Sitting at Hatteras looking at the ocean and thinking about how God said to that ocean…”this far and no further”…I feel true awe. Awe moves you. Not necessarily a physical move but could be…definitely a move on the inside. Fear defined as caution may be healthy fear. I fear guns in the hands of children. I fear poisonous snakes or people driving wrecklessly. Healthy fear though is not all consuming. Then there is that other kind of fear. If fear can be defined as awe then perhaps it can also be defined as worship. Anything that we fear or obsess over we worship. If we fear what others think of us then we fear man and are worshipping man. If we fear the financial situations then we are worshiping money. If we fear death then who are we are worshiping?

COMPLAINING AND ARGUING – Says in 2:14 to do everything without complaining or arguing. Do not complain or argue. That is directed at the church and is great advice. Sometimes we tend to complain and think our complaining is justified because we think we know something that others don’t, but these are never acceptable. Sometimes we argue and call it debating or bantering and I have seen more than one church split due to what started as arguing that someone called banter. When you get to vs. 15 it says why he wants you not to do that… I know that God has said to me on more than one occasion, “STOP arguing with ME. I only want to change you for good.” Isn’t it always amazing how much you can learn when you stop arguing with God?