Rise & Shine

Fear and perfectionism will rob us of joy.

Shame and a religious spirit will keep us hiding.

God wants us free to feel joy in His presence and shine His light through us.

Our wounds cause us to sin.  Sin causes us to die inside.  It cripples our potential.

Let's die to sin and live in love.

Rise and shine.

Two Kingdoms

This morning during my drive to drop off my youngest at playschool I had some very interesting thoughts going on. I'm not sure how it got started, but I began to think about how humans are hosts to spiritual beings, spiritual beings who want authority in the earth, but can only get it through an alliance and agreement with a human being. Truth is stranger than fiction. Why can't these beings just take what they want? Because the earth was given to mankind by God.

We abdicate our authority when we make agreements with the deceiver, Jesus Christ got it back for us, but we have to believe the keys exhist before we can use them. What we believe makes a world of difference. When I asked Jesus to come into my life and be my Lord and Saviour, I became His human host. This is why the Bible refers to the Church as the Body of Christ. When Jesus came into my heart and life He began to clean up any resident darkness, and so over the years, as I've surrendered to His process, I've become lighter as He cleanses this spiritual house that is me. The opposite happens when we let darkness in through agreements we make with the things of the kingdom of darkness.

During Jesus' ministry on earth He delivered some people by casting out the dark spiritual beings they were hosting. In one such story they begged Jesus to let them go into pigs, since they had to come out of the man at Christ's order. I gather that a pig host is better than no host, but the pigs rushed into the water as a result, and drowned. Eventually, the kingdom of darkness leads to death, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Since God loves the world, He sent His son to deliver it from the kingdom of darkness. All who invite Him into themselves and submit to His transforming power, will prove it in increasing measure, by coming out of agreement with the kingdom of darkness and destroying the spiritual work, and thus the physical destruction, caused by that dark kingdom. We are to do this by loving people.

God is love. Satan cannot love. Not real love. If we cause factions and strife, if we make judgements and condemn people based on judgements, we have missed our true calling. If we need to be right, we've missed it there too. Wrong exists. It touches everyone, it hurts, it's painful, it's frusterating, especially if someone you love is being hurt. We are to protect the innocent. We are to set the captives free, to release the prisoners of darkness. We do that by shining the light of love and truth. The truth is Jesus, not a philosophy you smack people with. Jesus shed His blood for us. That is truth. When we invite Him in, we invite the dominant spiritual power of light to overtake the darkness, from the inside out.

Desires That Bring Death vs. Death That Brings Life

I heard an excellent sermon a few weeks ago (well, I've heard many recently too, but you know what I mean). It was on a subject I have written about before, lived out and fully embraced, but too often, or repeatedly, fail at. It is the subject of giving everything over to God. Hopes. Dreams. Purpose. Giftedness. Happiness. Everything. Because unless we do, we are not yet truly embracing the Giver of all those things, but the things themselves.

How to do this without killing desire? Well, we call it sanctified desire. But even that is not good enough, as I have discovered. Sanctified desire is desire that has passed through the refining fires of surrender to God's will, God's purpose, God's dreams for us, those dreams and hopes and desires within us that are good and God-given. How can something placed in us by God fall short of His glory? How can something designed by God still bring us to destruction?

I know that I have not been immune to inadvertently placing my hopes, dreams, and purpose in between God and I. I know how it all feels. It can be very raw. However, thankfully, pouring my brokenness at His feet has put me in a position to recieve His grace in time of need. I suppose what I have percieved to be one of my weaknesses has turned into my strength. Because when I'm honest with Him about my weakness, He shows Himself strong. And it happens in the context of relationship, relationship that keeps having the roadblocks I dump into it removed (by Him) when I lament what they do to me. Sounds really bent, but we all do the dumping, few of us do the lamenting. I think it's because we don't percieve that our pain is from us dumping things between us and God. We think it's caused by our circumstances that are out of our control and in God's control and so we have a big question mark about God's goodness (though we Christians may rarely admit it). Which reminds me of a tree God planted in the beautiful garden He made for us in the beginning, the tree we were warned not to touch because it would bring death. The first couple doubted God's goodness when they were denied something that looked good to them, something, in fact, that God had made. They were led down a garden path of thinking that they should have this good-looking, God-made fruit that would give them something that seemed beneficial in their eyes. We look back and think they should have trusted God, they should not have listened to the deciever. But we fail at the same thing on a constant basis. I have learned my lesson on this topic over and over and over again. And it's not because I'm un-intelligent (did an IQ test for fun once). I think it's because life is a series of tests, and a battlefield. Being tested in battle. The battle for worship.

Satan knows that what we worship actually owns us. He knows most of us are too smart to overtly worship him, so he provides substitutes, whatever it takes, to keep us from actually worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Son of God, the only way to the Father. Because then we would become like Him and that is life to us and death to satan's power. When Jesus said that “you will know them (true believers/false believers/immature believers/unbelievers) by their fruit” He was not kidding. He was talking about what forms in us and in our lives as a result of what we worship. And we all worship. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and Self Control. As we grow in our relationship with God, our worship being purified, our inner self being healed as we spend more time with Jesus, we will exhibit this fruit of the Holy Spirit in increasing measure (it doesn't happen overnight).

There is a danger zone, however, one where the spiritual battle gets fierce. As we become more like Jesus, satan becomes agitated and afraid. As we begin to understand how the keys to God's Kingdom, the Kingdom of Light, work, satan sends an all out assault to try to stop and reverse this transformation and promotion to new levels of spiritual authority. Satan knows who has authority over him and who doesn't, who can begin to take back what he took from humanity and who can't. This may all sound like science fiction, especially if you're from North America or Europe, but that's because we think science has the answers, but the rest of the world knows better, hopefully N.A. and EU will start catching up. I know the thought of occult activity is unpleasant, but their power has a source, his name is satan, he has an army of spirit beings that do his bidding to keep humanity in bondage and ignorance. God also has an army. Evil spirits are cast out of people in the name and authority of Jesus Christ and they are healed of whatever bondage or illness that spirit was enforcing in them (not all illness is caused by evil spirits necessarily, but is a result of a sick and dying planet), I've witnessed it in Canada and it happens all over the world too. In Africa the Christians are raising people from the dead. In China imprisoned Christians with broken feet “somehow” walk out of locked prisons and their feet are healed. But secular media won't publish that, because everything in this world is controlled by spiritual powers and so, to keep things in doubt, satan controls what information gets out to the populace and discredits, where possible, the media that would print the acts of God. Powerless churches full of hoopla that cater to the thirst for entertainment and comfort, but fail to teach personal relationship with Jesus, obedience to His voice, and repentance from sin, and loving your neighbour as yourself, don't help either.

True Christianity is wonderful and it is also very hard. Because dying to yourself, to allow His life to be formed in you, is painful at times. The wonderful part can only begin to be described. God is love. He loves us, unconditionally. He always loved us, even before we know Him. He cares about the details of our lives, about our hearts. He knows what brings death to us and in order to save us from that, He goes after the virus in our souls. The various idols that we worship. He goes after them, one, by one, by one. He challenges the idol, he exposes it's ugliness and the level of it's grasp on us, often by thwarting it. The common response is grief or anger as we feel the sting. Which, ironically, we blame on God, but if we had God in His proper place in our lives (on the throne of our heart), we would have peace and joy, not angst and grief. This is how God exposes the idols that have power over us.

This is how He heals us from mental strongholds too. Strongholds are ways of thinking that hold us in a death grip of destructive patterns that gained access through emotional wounding and sin, these can even be passed on through family lines to consequent generations. He removes all the shoddy dressings we've applied, He challenges the stronghold, exposes it's true identity, so that we can confess it for what it is, repent of it, and be healed. He does the healing. It's like magic. I am not kidding. I can testify to it in my own life. There is one prayer God always says yes to, and it is this: “Lord, remove any strongholds in me and heal my wounds.”*** Then brace yourself, but don't worry it will turn out well, and it will be worth it. I've survived and went on to thrive after several such encounters. God is good. Despite what you feel at the moment.

Love,

M

*** Before you pray this prayer, if you haven't yet invited Jesus into your heart/life, as your personal Saviour and Lord, you need to do so first. If you're not sure how, you can use the following as a guide:

“Lord Jesus I need you to cleanse me from my sins, I choose to believe you are the Son of God, as the Bible says, who came to die as an atoning sacrifice for all sin, so that I can be reconciled to Father God. I now surrender myself, and my life to you, come take your place in me as my Lord and Saviour. Thank you God for loving me so much that you sent your Son for me, I recieve your gift of life and love. Thank you for this fresh start in life. I welcome you Holy Spirit, to be my counsellor and comforter, as promised by Jesus. Amen.”

If you've just prayed this prayer to recieve salvation, welcome to the family! To learn more about your new life in Christ and to help keep you strong, ask Holy Spirit to guide you to the church that is right for you at this time, make contact with someone in leadership there and let them know of your new found faith, they will love on you and help you grow as you get to know Jesus for yourself. God bless you!

Own It.

Have you ever wronged someone?

Of course you have.

Did you realize it at the time?

Most likely not.

Did you realize it later in life?  Whether an hour, a week, or 2 years, or 10 years later?

When you realized what you had done, regardless of the other person's part in it, what did you decide to do?

What would Jesus do?

Would He have shunned the humiliation of the cross because we denied Him, to save our own behind?  To save face?  To not be inconvenienced?

No.  He went to the cross.  Because He loved God, His Father.  For the sake of the future.  Your future, His future, our future.

Taking ownership of our wrongs and doing the right thing, regardless of another's part in it, sets us free.

There is no guarantee that the others involved will accept our gift or act in any way upon it, but I can tell you this:  Your heavenly Father will be pleased with you and release you from any tendrils that clung to you from your past wrong that are choking you or tripping you up in the present.

Wherever it is possible, wherever we are aware (and God will know when you're pretending to be ignorant, and really it won't help your life to go on like that), let us right our wrongs.  It may be that all we can do is confess it to God and ask His forgiveness.  It may be that He will provide opportunity for us to speak with apology to those we've wronged.  It may be that we are able to do more than apologize, we may even be able to correct the wrong.

Whatever we can do, let us own our wrongs, for the sake of others, for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of the future.

Love,
M

A War

Well, bit of a hiatus from writing and since this is an honest blog I will tell you what happened without telling you what happened. Someday I'll tell you both, but right now you will have to choose to either believe my chosen description or not. I feel like writing now, so I am.

Basically I've been in an active spiritual warzone since about mid May. I think, perchance, I stepped on the toes of some evil spirit and it went to town on me. It did so by mercilessly attacking my sleep through multiple means, not just one, but multiple means. It strove to consume every avenue of rest I had at my disposal. The lack of rest and sleep made me weak and provided it with some open doors to delve into my life further. I didn't know what hit me until I was neck deep in it, gasping for air. But Jesus was with me.

I would give you details if I knew you wouldn't be tempted to judge and label me, and who am I to place such vile temptation in your path, so, for now, no details. What I will share, is that while in the battle I felt my future, with my hopes and dreams, disappear. I was afraid at times, but God let me know He was with me and that gave me peace. He told me I was in His hand. I was able to trust Him with my heart, because we have been through a lot together already, and He had proved Himself faithful before.

I shared details with very few: my husband, my mother, my sister, my pastor and 3 others who I felt needed to know. They kept me in prayer. I believe their Holy-Spirit-directed prayers kept my head above water. I walked in, through, and out. And then “it” came upon me again. This time, however, I went straight to the Throne Room in Heaven and put my face at His feet and cried about what I should do. First He ministered His love to me. He spoke to me in songs. Next He opened my eyes. He showed me that I had misplaced my gaze in certain areas and that gave “it” opportunity. He said, “Put all your gaze back onto Me”. So I did.

He showed me some chinks in my armor, loopholes in my spiritual armor, that I didn't realize I helped to create. When there are holes in your armor, whatever the issue is, the power of your prayers in regards to that issue is then limited. Repentance repairs chinks in armor and restores your spiritual authority in Christ in that area. When there are unrepented issues, those areas, your flesh, becomes visible to the enemy, those areas are not hidden in Christ, they are holes in your armor and your enemy is an expert fighter well versed in combat. Basically you're screwed unless you know where to go and know your place. Pride is an Achille's heel the enemy will nurture in you, because he knows willful pride seperates us from God. Get on your face. This is one reason it helps to have others praying for you, because they may have authority where you do not. The chinks in their armor are different from the ones in yours. This is why we need each other. The church is to function as a cohesive body... “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”. James 5:16 NIV So I repented of the things He showed me.

Repentance repaired my armor and placed God's delegated authority back in my hand. I began to pray in my spiritual language. I began to feel strength returning to my spirit and I stood up, ready, and able, to fight. Fight and win. “It” left and took it's minions with it. Strength and healing returned to my body and soul. What lasted 2 months was finished in under 2 hours.

I will now make a few clarifications, so that folks don't jump to conclusions and/or make jackasses out of themselves:

One: Just because someone is going through a hard time does not mean they sinned and brought it upon themselves. We live on planet earth and stuff happens to us. Sometimes God allows us to walk through hardship so that we learn to access His peace, comfort and strength despite it, this grows us up into strong spiritual warriors. When things are going well we often forget what is important and that can be lethal, our spiritual muscles can atrophy.

Two: Sometimes God allows the enemy to think he has won in an area of our lives, because when the enemy gets overconfident in his dealings with us, God comes in and put's him in his place again and let's us participate (that part is fun). That is also training ground for spiritual warfare.

Three: The reality is we have been born into a spiritual battle between God's Kingdom and satan's. If you live on earth, you are in it, whether you like it, believe it, or not. All humans were created in God's likeness and all have potential to ruin satan's spiritual kingdom. He hates all of us, Christians in particular, because we have been given the keys of authority through the atoning work of Jesus Christ in our lives. Unfortunately many who call themselves Christians don't yet understand how the keys work, the less of a threat you are to satan's kingdom, the less he pays attention to you, however that is because he knows in the end you'll die anyway, and he's fine with that.

Calling yourself a Christian is no guarantee of heaven, knowing Jesus and proving your belief is. This by accepting His ultimate sacrifice to redeem you, by giving Him your life, the rights to your life, Lordship over you. He's the only one who deserves it and He went first (giving His life away), because of love. Jesus asks, the devil takes; Love vs. hate. How much light and dark is in us and where we are in the process of sanctification is proved by the ripening fruit of our thoughts, words, and actions. Fact of spiritual life. And everything is connected to spiritual life.

I think that's enough for today.

Why Is Noah Always Naked?

When my first-born daughter, Emma, was a toddler, someone had given her a plush, fabric book about Noah's Ark. The book came complete with a six-inch, sewn Ark and three-inch, sewn and stuffed animals, and Noah. They all had a spot of velcro on them, so you could stick them on the pages of the book, when called for, in the story. Noah was dressed in a blue robe, a cloth with a band on his head, and he had a whitish-grey beard. You could stuff them all inside the Ark, it was cute; Emma loved it.

One day I found Noah laying on the floor among the toys, but missing his blue robe. I kind of laughed to myself, remembering the story of Noah, in his tent, after the flood (when he had imbibed in one too many grape-pepsies from his vineyard, and passed out, disrobed). I decided the Noah doll should not stay that way, and so found his robe and tried to put it on him. Not easy. Not easy at all. Probably why he wasn't re-dressed by the child that disrobed him. I wrestled with this ridiculous thing for longer than I care to admit, but finally, he was decent again. I felt very satisfied in having persevered and done the right thing, despite the challenge of it. Noah was now acceptable again.

Flash forward a few years and child number two (another baby girl, Anna) comes along and also discovers the delight of this fabric book set. A few months ago I noticed Noah made it onto the bathroom floor, and again, no robe. This, of course, was not right, so I set about to fix it. Again I struggled and wrestled until after, like, forever, Noah was successfully clothed. Feeling very satisfied with the reward of my labors and finally being done with such tediousness, I carried on with my day.

A couple of months go by and guess what? Noah. Again. On the floor. No robe. Now I'm thinking, what is this? In a rush, I try to robe him again, but I really didn't have time... or patience, so I gave up and tossed him, half dressed, into the toy bin. Another couple months go by and Noah has found his way back to the bathroom floor, completely robeless once again. This time, with a little laugh under my breath, I wondered, why is Noah always naked? I left Noah where he was and carried on with life. For weeks, Noah lay on the floor. I stopped noticing his nakedness. I accepted his presence on the bathroom floor. I did move him back to the toys now and again, but he always made it back to the bathroom. I no longer tried to dress him. I just accepted him the way he was now.

Every now and then, when I would see him again, with a little laugh under my breath, I wondered, yet again, why is Noah always naked? I was kind of joking, but my spiritual antennae was beginning to pick up on something now, like there was something significant in all this. I asked God if He was trying to tell me something, but again I left Noah where he was and carried on with life.

The other day, after noticing naked Noah still on the floor, I talked about it to Emma, my eldest (now 8). I asked her why Noah was always naked. She said that Anna (age 2 and a half) undresses him, and that she tried to dress him for her, but Anna protested loudly, so she left him undressed. Emma's theory was that Anna didn't like Noah's robe, it wasn't her style. No doubt she'd prefer a tutu of some sort, but whatever it was, Noah's blue robe just wasn't cutting it for Anna.

This morning, as Noah greeted me in his usual birthday suit, I started getting pieces of insight about this scenario. I began to remember the Bible story (Genesis 9: 20-27) and how there is much significance in the piece about how Noah's sons respond to his nakedness. Nowhere does it say that God judged Noah for getting drunk on the fruit of his vineyard and passing out naked in his tent (it does say in Gen. 7:1 that Noah was a righteous man in his generation, in God's eyes). However, the son that sees his father's nakedness and goes to tell his brothers brings a curse on himself and his descendants. The brothers whom he told, decide to go into the tent backwards, with a robe stretched between them, their faces averted, so that they didn't gaze on their father's nakedness, and cover him. This resulted in bringing a blessing on themselves and their descendants.

There are people, both in the World and in the Church who seem to think that pointing out other's areas of nakedness is ok. They fail to see the plank in their own eye. They don't deal with their own issues that cause them to “gaze” at others and commit sins that are a hundred times worse than being found naked. What is in your heart? It is a worse sin not to cover each other's nakedness, than to be found naked. It is so much worse, that you are treading the dangerous territory of bringing down a curse on yourself and your descendants. Repent. Quickly. We are not called to expose nakedness... “Love covers a multitude of sins...”, but to love:

Proverbs 17:9 He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends.

1 Peter 4:8 Above all things have intense and unfailing love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and disregards the offenses of others].

God is not an accuser, He is Love. Satan is an accuser. Do not be tempted to accuse, to uncover, and to expose one another. If you're struggling with a situation, seek God's wisdom for your life. Perhaps you are uncomfortable, because of what resides inside you, seek healing. Perhaps you are to move into a new thing and the discomfort is a signal to move. Go to God looking at yourself, not pointing your finger at another. You will find what you need in His presence.

God will forgive the foolishness of our youth as we repent; in regards to spiritual things, don't remain a foolish youth.

Grow up. Be gracious. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. When you blow it, we all do at times, repent. Apologize. And grow. And be blessed.

1 Corinthians 13:7-9

Amplified Bible (AMP)

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].

8 Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy ([a]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].

9 For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).

Noah was like we all are, buck naked at times. His sons are an example to us in how we can choose to respond to that nakedness in each other.

Noah will always be naked.

We all have skin showing.

How will you respond?