God spoke to me last week that He will spend my lifetime loving me.
Francis shared such a timely, timeless, sure word worth sharing.
Tag: Gospel
Repentance
There’s nothing as good as repentance. At least that’s what it feels like right now. For some time I have a singular item that is perfectly innocent from an outsiders perspective but has been a point of contention between the Lord and I for some time. It’s like I had been going back and forth, back and forth, for years about this objectively small issue of the heart. God’s way, my way, God’s way, my way, my way, my way, my way. Although the item was minute, it was creating a distance between me and God that was not. Don’t get me wrong I mentally know and knew everything I used to about God’s goodness, but it seemed the feeling of those truths was growing duller. I objectively started placing this particular item beside me while I had conversations with God. I’m not hiding anything. God knows everything but I decided I became fine with my way not being God’s way. I could see all of this happening of course, but it was just a little item, it was alright for everyone else, but I didn’t want to chose God’s way. I wanted my way. But it wasn’t fine. I could feel the hard heartedness settling in, the behavior compliance for appeasement in other areas, managing my performance for approval and acceptance despite this one thing I was holding onto of course. Well, the push comes to shove and it now is having negative consequences and side effects that are quicker, more immediate, less avoidable. Then my self management of my own poor choices kicks into even higher gear and I move other things around just to continue to accommodate ‘my preference’. It finally gets to a point of my own repeated choosing that the consequences begin to scare me. It is then in my fear, I ask for prayer. Not for my behavior or its consequences, but of my hard heartedness before the Lord. I was exhausted of myself rejecting him, especially knowing who he is, what he’s done for me, and how wretched my selfishness really is. I kept trying to climb out of a hole with the Lord I had dug myself into day after day. From the perspective of the bottom of this whole it was harder to see his face. I could remember it but I wasn’t feeling it. I could see him loving me but I wasn’t feeling it. The lack of his seeming nearness, mostly because of my botched conscious before the Lord became suffocating to exist within and because of that spiritual exfixiation I had to do anything possible to free myself from this rut. And then in an answer to someone else’s prayer for me, God allowed me to see his kindness. I saw that everything he was inviting me into was for my good. Everything he was inviting me out of was for my good. Everything I was resisting was actually literally harming me and the desires of my heart and impeding my answers to prayer. He wasn’t wanting to take anything away from me, but actually give me something in that things absence. He has better gifts for me. Not only better eternal things but a better life here and now. He was for me, no longer the rule enforcing, critiquing, petty, official my flesh wanted me to believe he had become. He was my creator who knows me better than anyone knows me. Better than I know myself. He sees all the variables–including my desires–and still promises to show me a better way, the best way for me. We don’t know the value we lose for things we don’t yield to him about, not only do we disobey what we hear but we sometimes intentionally turn our ears of to not even hear the thing we already do not want to obey. It is God’s grace and kindness that we can see clearly his motives in his intentions towards us. Motives to withhold no good thing. Motives to give us a long life full of peace and rest in him alone. His motive is for our joy, our happiness, our pleasure, and his glory. He is graciously stubborn in refusing to compromise regarding the compromises of our hearts. He is a stickler for our closeness to him, the best and safest place for us in the world to be. I had to fight all the thorns of lies that kept pushing me backwards–allowed by my own repeated choices–from this embrace in his arms. I had to fight against my own complacency to find my way back there into the strong loving embrace of my father. To be at rest again in his will, finally allowing myself to receive his affection again, hiding nothing, surrendering everything–well for now, at least this. I am so thankful for repentance. I can’t earn God’s approval or nearness through behavioral maneuvering and or my own position jockeying, because alone he care for the posture of my heart, not the external behaviors he is leading us out of. And so I follow him and hopefully glorify his holy name.
Happy Freedom Day
I do not want to be a nice, socially acceptable, liked Christian. The basic beliefs of Christianity are offensive to every spirit and force that opposed Jesus Christ as Lord of the earth. I think I am tired of any fear of man that entertains the idea that a good Christian is a reasonably tolerable human being who never holds controversial convictions. Someone I spoke with recently said they are done being silent. I like this idea too for myself, but from the perspective that Christianity is not a normal and common lifestyle that looks no different from the adjacent unbeliever. I don’t want to blend in, and so in basic Christianity 101, I am addressing a topic that maybe is seen as fringe by the general public but I assure you it’s the power of God – deliverance.
Most people when they think of deliverance think of a kooky stage performer who is possibly styled weird with a mad grab for attention and probably involves theatrics, but in its origin, deliverance was Jesus loving people by delivering them from the suffering they so desperately felt powerless to escape from. Nowadays the general public suffers from the same afflictions but we have fancy words for them, scientific explanations, and societal modifications for their integration. Some people’s identity gravitates around that which afflicts them, sometimes adopted as a form of bragging rights for attention, sometimes people suffer silently alone without telling a soul what they feel or experience in their bodies, minds, or souls that they can’t seem to get free from.
These tendencies of affliction that are scattered among us affect the destinies of lives. More first responders last year took their own lives than died in the line of duty. Wives are abandoned, abused, or smothered. Marriages disintegrate, and criminals commit offenses against other humans. These are all symptoms of thoughts and diseases of the bodies and souls of men and women. Jesus does not give false hope.
When Jesus says the truth shall set you free, he does not mean in a fanciful Zen way that simply restructures how we look at a current affliction. He does not mean that re-posturing our heart and perspective is the solution he’s offering as we continue to suffer. I believe in the power of God. I believe in the authority of Jesus Christ here on earth. I believe that demons exist, are among us, and are influencing our world and daily lives. And I believe that God’s kingdom has dominion over them here and now. This nuance of hierarchy reveals not only the existence of God and his dominion but of his love.
Understand that God is not using his power, his authority, his position of divine leadership to cause suffering. He is not using his authority to oppress, to bind, to rob, and to steal. It’s unfathomable. He is good. And he is using his authority for our best. The cool part is he’s not only ruling from a position of love, but he’s given that authority to us. To me and you. Here and now. To also RULE in this world. This in no way means dominate, control, or manipulate for selfish purposes, but this means to rule in love, and relief, and service, and aid, and …deliverance, freedom, and release from chains.
So getting on to it. The basics of deliverance are that 1) if you have unforgiveness you are imprisoning yourself in suffering so you have to get rid of that NOW. Forgive. It’s the only door Jesus gives us and if you don’t want to, he says he’s going to use your standard for others on yourself. It’s your choice. 2) Our behaviors, words, experiences, thoughts, and choices can invite, welcome, or create agreements with demonic forces. Does this always look evil? No. Fear, worry, anxiety, doubt, unbelief, discouragement, guilt, shame, insecurity can all look 100% normal, socially acceptable, and perfectly reasonable. Even some crimes and relational redefinition are not only acceptable but are celebrated. Are demonic powers being exalted here? Yes, just because something is chosen by an individual doesn’t make it good, or redefine what kingdom it originates from.
Moving on, let’s go to Luke 11. Starting at verse 14, some editor for the bible translation I’m using named this section Jesus and the Prince of Demons. Let me lay it out here for people who don’t have their bible on hand then we’ll continue. Lots of red words in this section, for those of you who don’t know, red words in a bible indicate Jesus talking, as in, pay attention. I can only do color by block here so please ignore the red tag lines that indicate who’s speaking.
Jesus and the Prince of Demons
14 One day Jesus cast out a demon from a man who couldn’t speak, and when the demon was gone, the man began to speak. The crowds were amazed, 15 but some of them said, “No wonder he can cast out demons. He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons.” 16 Others, trying to test Jesus, demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.
17 He knew their thoughts, so he said, “Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A family splintered by feuding will fall apart. 18 You say I am empowered by Satan. But if Satan is divided and fighting against himself, how can his kingdom survive? 19 And if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists? They cast out demons, too, so they will condemn you for what you have said. 20 But if I am casting out demons by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you. 21 For when a strong man is fully armed and guards his palace, his possessions are safe— 22 until someone even stronger attacks and overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his belongings.
23 “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.
24 “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ 25 So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and in order. 26 Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before.”
27 As he was speaking, a woman in the crowd called out, “God bless your mother—the womb from which you came, and the breasts that nursed you!”
28 Jesus replied, “But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.”
Basic worldview understandings implied here: demons exist. They are spirits. They enter humans. They inhabit humans and dwell within them. Demons can be cast out. God exists. Satan exists. They both have kingdoms. Their kingdoms have organization and measures of power. Humans have value that is fought over and are resting places for spirits (made to be a resting place for God’s spirit).
God’s kingdom, (now where all authority has been given to Jesus – who also a HUMAN) holds no contest against demonic influence on other fellow humans. Jesus just shows up and demons have to flee. Just like light and darkness. You turn on the light switch and light and darkness don’t actually fight for the room. Once light–an actual substance of particles and waves–arrives, darkness no longer remains.
Jesus said it is better that he leave after he was resurrected and he ascended into heaven BECAUSE he was sending the HOLY spirit. Another spirit – not a demon – but the spirit of God, that is also meant and designed to rest within us. And live through us. And influence our thoughts, our hearts, our behaviors, all in intimate fellowship, divine exchange, and union with God. This spirit, who is love, who is peace, who is joy, is the spirit we want to influence our lives by CHOICE, not other spirits who want to hurt us, to steal from us, and want our death. God’s spirit is our life.
Earlier in this writing piece, I left off at step number two in basic deliverance. Here’s three 3) renouncing our agreement with these demonic influences on our lives. You don’t want them there? Then use the voice and authority God has given you and say out loud and mean that you renounce your agreement with them. Want some ideas of things that may be influencing your life for starters that generally aren’t fun to deal with or have around in life?
Fear of man, cowardice, timidity, insecurity, abandonment, restlessness, affliction, sickness, torment, disease, agitation, confusion, doubt, double-mindedness, guilt, shame, self-hatred, addiction, idolatry, witchcraft, cursing, vulgarity, lewdness, licentiousness, rejection, defensiveness, self-protection, unworthiness, worthlessness, suicide, death, religious spirits, betrayal, recklessness, covetousness, lying, gossip, slander, adultery, promiscuity, waywardness, vulgarity, bitterness, discouragement, hopelessness, stinginess, fear of lack, foreboding, terror, torment, injury, spiritual attacks, word curses, foul spirits, unclean spirits, mis-sexuality, distraction, wantonness, insomnia, rage, anger, hatred, violence, and more!
Don’t want these things around influencing your mind, your day, your life? Then renounce them and your agreement with them for starters. 4) Then tell them to leave you. Leave your body. Leave your home. Leave your family. Leave your life. Now. In Jesus’ name.
Jesus has authority, and Jesus’ name has power. Call me crazy, go ahead. It’s true. This is true. This is the difference between people standing around and having a conversation about ideas versus experiencing a solution. Am I saying this will fix everything? Maybe. God has faith in your purpose, in your value, in your worth, in your instrinsic valuableness. You really do. And God wants you to experience life in its fullness. Life as he intended. Remember who you are. Remember what God has spoken over your life. Remember your authority. You are not a victim here. Christ reigns through you. Have faith in him, in Jesus’ cross and resurrection power over even death.
What replaces all these negative things that leave? What happens when we turn to Christ exercising the authority he has shown us and taught us and sent us out to do unto others? Peace, rest, stillness, calm, settling, freedom, hope, joy, love, generosity, soundness of mind, clarity of thought, inspiration, creativity, insight, wisdom, truth, feeling comfortable in our own bodies and our own homes, loveliness, gentleness, patience, goodness, thoughtfulness, consideration, faithfulness, strength, healing, listening, openness, ease of laughter, light heartedness, obedience, worship, righteousness, well-being, desire to do good, revelation, presence of God, divine truth, light.
Invite these things into your life, your heart, your mind, your spirit. TRUST GOD. Enough with running around in your spirit already. Refuse that restlessness and resign yourself to God’s sovereignty and care over your life. Refuse to NOT trust him anymore. Stop trying to manage your life independent of your ABSOLUTE dependence on God. Let him take care of you. Let him provide for you. Trust his timing. Trust what he’s already told you. Listen to him. Listen to him again. Spend time with him. Enjoy being alive already. Have fun. Enjoy other people. It’s time to stop being a victim and become a child of God again.
Christ’s authority doesn’t fade, doesn’t diminish, and doesn’t go away.
Happy Freedom Day
Good News
The below words aren’t mine. I listened to an online prayer meeting last night and heard the message I could listen to everyday for the rest of my life. I have heard this all over the world and spoken it to others myself. I get absolutely emotionally lost in this good news. My spirit becomes so satisfied and rich with the presence of God basking in this truth. I couldn’t help but go back to the recording, transcribe it, and share it here. May it bless you.May it touch you. May you feel God’s spirit, his presence, his life in the room with you as you read this.
“In last January and February I did a deep dive into Romans.
I want to meditate together on what’s been purchased for us, on what Christ has done in us. How many of us ever look at yourself, or you make a mistake, you do something stupid, and you feel bad. Right thinking produces right living. Often times in religious cultures we try to do right living first before right thinking, right believing. But repentance is to change the way we think. It means to go up to the next place. And so let’s just meditate. I’m not going to preach at you.
Romans Chapter 4,5,6,7 and 8. I’m convinced you can’t actually know your identity in Christ outside of these passages. When I begin to read these, Romans 4 really shows how faith works.
Abraham is the father of faith. He believed God before he had the sign of circumcision. Before you feel the breakthrough, before your family is saved, before your healing is manifest. Before you feel saved, before your prayer language. Before he saw all those things, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. That’s how faith works and he’s the Father of faith.
Romans Chapter 5 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace of mind starts with God. Peace of mind starts with Faith in Christ.
Faith in what he’s done. And you can’t add to the blood of Jesus.
How many of you have felt the unrest and the anxiety and the fear of America and all that’s going on in the world. How many of you guys have felt that? I have to continually go to the heavenly places, Ephesians 2. I’m present with Christ in the heavenly places and just dwell above the storm.
We’ve been justified by faith. Just as if we’d never sinned. Thank you Jesus for Peace. Jesus thank you for peace. Somethings you have to cast out. Other things you crowd out. We’re going to crowd out anxiety right now. Holy Spirit come. Peace rush in like a river. If you have been battling anxiety and fear, lift up your hand. We just release the peace of God over you right now.
We have access by faith into this grace by which we now stand. We stand. We’re standing and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Thank you Lord. Peace is not the absence of chaos, its the presence of a person. Thank you for your peace Lord. Come Holy Spirit, thank you Lord.
You know it says in Romans 5:17, If by the one man’s offense, death reigned through the one man, much more those receive the abundance of grace, ABUNDANCE of grace and GIFT of righteousness. How much grace do you need? It’s never going to run out. No, you don’t understand Tom, I’ve had a tough week, tough day. I know me too but its an abundance tho that is never going to run out. It’s a gift of righteousness that we reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. How do we reign in life? Through receiving the abundance of grace, the gift of righteousness. Put your hand on your heart and say, “Thank you God that you have made me righteous. I am righteous in your sight. Thank you Lord.
How many of you need grace today? God is my source of everything. I have nothing without him. How much do I need? An abundance of grace. Romans 5:20 says where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Grace abounded much more. I feel like some of you guys we’ve been listening to accusation. We’ve allowed the enemy to make ourselves the worst enemy and we’re accusing ourselves. How many people need to let that go right now? Yes, let that go right now.
Speak to yourself, “Heather, time to receive some grace. Time to give yourself some grace. Time to give yourself some grace. God has more than enough grace for us but sometimes we’re the hardest on ourselves, right? Say this over yourself, “Say Heather, You’re not the judge. You’re not God. Jesus Christ is Lord.
Chapter 6 So What are we going to say, that continue in sin so grace may abound? Certainly not! How should we who died to sin live in it any longer? Don’t you know that those of you who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? There we were buried with him through baptism into his death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. If we have been UNITED together in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. We have been made one with Christ. He is Lord. We’re made ONE with Christ. We are united, co-crucified, co-buried and co-raised in Jesus.
Oftentimes we get a religious mindset and we say I am going to go and I’m gonna pray to God, and that’s okay, but more than that God wants us to commune with him, commune together. The blending of two pitchers of water. They no longer cease to be separate entities, they become one. Impossible to separate. This is a perfect picture of our relationship with God, because we have become one with him. One with Christ. Isn’t that a good word? You are one with the superpower. You’re one with somebody who is gracious and kind, he is constantly true, it’s who he is.
Put your hand on your heart, we’re going to receive this. This is an encounter time, say “I’ve been united with Christ through his death, burial, and resurrection. I am crucified with Christ. The old me is dead. DEAD DEAD. Dead dead dead. Dead to offense, dead to lust, dead to lying. Dead to everything else that ’s not Jesus, so I let it go. Thank you for the blood of Jesus. That we’ve been made one with you Lord. One with you Lord. Knowing that our old man was crucified that our body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
We died to the husband of sin as the authority over our lives. I died to my overshadowing husband of sin over my life and my perspective of my life, and now the wife has been set free to marry another. And this other that she just married wasn’t another man but the spirit of God, Christ. So she has been united with Christ. There is a marriage union that has happened. There has been a death, I have died to the law, I am no longer married to that, instead I am united in one spirit with Christ. I am one, united with him. Forever.
And the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives inside of me. This is why God has taken away our ability to enjoy sin. Which is why sometimes stuff starts kicking up and can come to God and there is a fountain that has sprung up, it’s never going to dry out. That’s a fountain called the blood of Jesus. There is ONE hope for a life burdened down with guilt and shame and that’s the blood of Jesus that the cross of Christ has purchased. Can I say it’s not your enneagram number? It’s not your personality profile, its the blood of Jesus, one blood. Amen. Makes us new.
Romans 8:1 Therefore there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death, for what the law was powerless to do, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh that we might be united with Christ.
This is the gospel. There is only way to the father, one way to hope and that’s through faith in Jesus, that’s through trusting in him and what he’s done in our lives. We have been set free from the spirit of this air.
An untrained, unschooled, unqualified woman meets the son of God, goes home and becomes the first missionary evangelist the world has ever seen, possessed with conviction of the Son of God she has seen face to face. When you see the Lord as who he is, you don’t have to have all the qualifications, you’ve seen something and you’ve come alive.
Quit managing an image for everybody else to think that your something and step into freedom! Do not let pride keep you from getting right with God. I’m going to lose my life to get right with him, washed clean in the blood of Jesus. You’re going to get free tonight and leave here so full of HOPE.
Thank him for righteousness, peace, and joy in his holy spirit, the free gift of righteousness. I feel like there’s about to be a blast of supernatural risk. The currency of faith of heaven touching earth. Taking risk, going for it, its messy sometimes, terrifying, ABIDE IN HIS GRACE, ONE WITH CHRIST. When I realize I’m united with Christ, that puts me on a foundation, to look at all the thoughts that come across my screen and to sift those things that are not him, and drink the things that are him. When condemnation comes across my screen, keep going, when accusation comes across my screen, nope that’s not it, keep going, and I just worship. Just stay seated with Christ in heavenly places.
Jesus thank you that we are united with Christ, one with you, we worship you God. Come holy spirit, fill us up. For the rest of this meeting I want us to come with authority. John 1:12 says as many as who have received him he has given the right to be called sons of God, a badge to cop, its the authority to come as sons and daughters, with risk and faith, we are going to pull down heaven, peace, salvation. We have the authority of heaven as ambassadors in Christ to declare things that are not as though they were and see heaven come!”
–Tom Crandall, Bethel Church Sunday Night Prayer Meeting, June 13, 2021
happyreign 