Eternalizing Priorities

Finding myself swamped and surprised once again by this phenomena that happens at the end of each calendar year, I decided to ask God how I should organize my time (kinda wish I'd asked 3 weeks ago!).  I thought it would be a delayed and complicated response, perhaps taking months, or years, of transformation into another personality type...

But no.  The answer came immediately and as I was praying.  In fact within my prayer was the answer.

"Does it have eternal value?"

I grabbed pen and paper and listened.


1)  Is God asking you to do it?*
2)  Does it have eternal value?
3)  Is it a need?
4)  Does it bring you life?**

If not, let it go, because you can't, nor should you, try to do it all.


Those who care about you will understand.  Those who don't understand, don't care about you, they don't know how, because they don't know how to care for themselves.  Caring for ourselves is the first step in loving our neighbor as ourselves (the second commandment, which is like the first and greatest commandment to love God).  When we are cared for, we will understand how to care for others in a way that brings true life to them, and us, at the same time.  This is not selfishness, but awareness that we are human and need care, it's when we go beyond what we need that we become gluttons for self-gratification.





*God does not contradict His revealed word (Holy Bible), so everything we think we "hear" from Him must line up and pass the test of scripture.

**True life is doing what is truly good for you, this includes healthy rest and recreation (excercise, hobbies), being inspired by beautiful art, dating your spouse etc.

Let There Be Light

I love the freshness and lightness of November, the wind sweeping away the old in preparation for the most beautiful time of the year, when we celebrate the Light of the world stepping down into darkness...

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

True or False [Hope]?

I wrote this on some notepaper almost a week ago, but didn't have time to blog it until now.

I love my husband.

I love our children.

I love the home and life we've made together, that God has blessed us with.

Moments of panic or despair seize me when I see or feel that I've done nothing else with my life, or with my gifts and talents, or with my passions, because of defeat through my own flaws, or defeat through exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed by my responsibilities and then a lack of sufficient time.

What good are my gifts and talents and passions then?

Most mammals can procreate, feed their young, the population has homes to keep. What gifts/talents/passions are needed for that?

Why am I the way I am, if I was not intended to use what I've been given? Better to have been born ordinary than to suffer my gifts to an ordinary (though nice and noble) life.

So I try to carve out a niche, I keep hoping, I try to protect the flame.

The other option, that I can see, is to snuff the flame and see if I can survive as a “Stepford”. I actually tried that for a couple weeks, but God did not bless it.

So the struggle continues and my hope is in God's grace being sufficient for my weakness and for my passion.

My hope is in His goodness. In His plan. And when I am weak, I rage, and the enemy prowls around like a lion, watching for his opportunity to bring me down.

He who hopes, lives; he who's hope is lost, is lost.

As the Church we have a hope. But even then, it is not church, but our relationship with Jesus, our knowing of, and knowing we are known by God, that gives true hope.

False hopes abound and are dashed every day, hearts and lives are lost.

I can only point in the direction of true hope as I find it myself, live it myself.

It is a huge battle to enter into the place where true hope lives, because of the one who knows his defeat is imminent, his power weakened, his authority taken away, when the children of God awaken to who they are in Him.

The nucleus of holiness that contains true hope will burn off us anything of no eternal value. The closer I get, the more I burn, the more I see how much I carry has no eternal value. His love for me is the only thing that keeps me moving forward. Period.

Later this past week I was desperate to hear what God would say, I even woke up at 3am and then got up at 3:30am to spend some alone time with Him, but even at that hour, my toddler decided to have loud conversation, so I went back to bed. Later that morning, as I stumbled toward the coffee-maker for that life giving elixer, He spoke: “Psalm 23:3”. Not being sure of what it said, I looked it up. In 30 seconds He is able to do so much with one. Little. Word.

“He restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness,

For His name's sake.”

He cares about me. He restores my soul. He guides me. And He does it for me for the sake of His Name.

That pretty much clinches it.

I'm good for another, well... oh week, at least. :-)

No, in all seriousness, these things go deep and do their work. I was also blessed that same day from a meeting with one of my pastors. God is good. Period.

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.

Shaken (song & lyrics by Paul Baloche)

Only a spotless lamb

For a sinner's soul

You gave me a heart of flesh

For a heart of stone


You brought me down to my knees

When I was full of pride

And took away all the places
I could hide


Those You love You will chasten


Everything that can be will be shaken

Everything that can be will be shaken

And only You remain

Only You remain

Wherever my treasure is

There my heart will be

I'm fixing my eyes on things

In the heavenlies

When everything is said and done

And swept away

I wanna be by Your side


In eternity

Those You love You will chasten

No suffering for the moment

Is pleasant but it brings forth

The peaceful fruit of righteousness

Jesus my righteousness

Only You remain

Only You remain