A Simple Poem

This morning I heard this simple invitation from the Lord…

Come into the sanctuary
Sit with Me a while
Lay down all your heavy cares
Lift your head and smile

No matter where you are, God is there. No matter how much you have to do. God is there. In the middle of your mess, he’s a Father who has time.

He always has time.
He is the glory and lifter of our head.

We can choose to lift our head to him and smile.
When we do, the things we struggle with
and voices around us bow.
They can get no applause.

Suggested reading to soak on: Psalm 3

https://www.biblehub.com/niv/psalms/3.htm

A song to help you look up:

Wilderness or Pasture? It’s all in your perspective.

Perspective is so important in life, and it’s easy to stay focused on ourselves to the degree that we are consumed with feelings and attitudes that are not from God. As I was in a place of deep intercession this morning. I began to cry, “There are no unwanted children! There are NO unwanted children in this world. Everyone of them is wanted.” Oh, how the lies settle into our soul when we don’t see the bigger picture God has planned for our lives. His timeline seems long sometimes, as we wait, but he is developing us in the place we are at.

To those who feel rejected, God says, “I see your heart. You are not misunderstood. You just don’t understand how MUCH you are wanted. You have listened to a voice of deception and not seen the whole picture. Don’t focus so much on your own heart and look at the heart of the ones who you think have given up on you, or hurt you. Do you fully understand why? Do you understand what sacrifice looks like yet?

The wilderness is not a bad place! It’s a restful place, a pasture, where David sang to the Lord and overcame the lions and bears he alone faced. God gave him a promise while he was still there, even anointed him, yet he had to grow up in faith and stature to be able to carry the title of king. He had to learn, be trained in warfare and prove himself or he would have not have been the king who overcame as he did, who did not let the world or its ways affect him. Note, David didn’t get a personal trainer to do it. He didn’t even get a mentor! A shepherd is left in the quiet and focuses on his sheep.

 

If you feel isolated, or alone, remember Samuel. Remember how his mother gave him up for a greater purpose to be alone with God in the temple at a young age.

Understand the sacrifice Hannah had to make when she cried for a child and then promised to raise him for God. She wept. She wept! But she said, “Yes”, knowing her relationship would be limited but that she had to prepare him to live dependent on God and his voice alone. How great the temptation to feel alone in that place. But Jesus said, “I will never leave you.” Can we be content with him alone? Is he enough? 

There are different groups of people who may be reading this.

There are Hannah’s

Remember the story above.

There are humble kings

Remember David. God was developing him in the pasture. His calling was not recognized by anyone but the prophet. David’s father didn’t even include him in the lineup when Samuel came to select one of his son’s as king. He was still “out tending sheep”. The prophet knew who he was looking for but, note, he didn’t take him along with him and raise him up. That was not in his power. No, all he did was call him out. Then, David was content to man the sheep or to serve until his time came, when the people recognized him as King 15 years later!

David always honored Saul, even when he knew he had been anointed future king. Could he walk as king yet. No. He just went back to his sheep and cared for them well. He walked in fear of the Lord, wanting to be ready when the time came for him to lead a great people, God’s people! With reverence and humility and never exalted himself or pushed his way to the top. He waited for his time and seemed to understand the need to grow until the time came to take on more responsibility. 

There are prophets going through death to self

Remember Joseph. What did we hear from him at first. “I… I…. I’’’ I had this revelation. I had that revelation. It was more than his brothers could take, and he was rejected by them. Sold into slavery. Mopped floors in the palace, was misunderstood and thrown in a dungeon. Yet God allowed it. He had great revelations from his youth, but he needed to learn something. Psalm 105:19 says, “Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph’s character” (NLT).

When the time comes to be recognized, you will not exalt yourself, so rest and take care of what is in your garden right now. Just walk in what you have and shepherd well what is right in your pasture. Don’t envy what is not yet yours, or lust for what you do not yet have. You are gaining wisdom, patience, self-control and learning to love. Relish the opportunities to be humble. Be content and serve well with what you have. In time, as you are faithful with little, God will entrust you with much. Remember that a prophet needs to be SURE of the voice he/she is hearing, so if you have a call to speak on God’s behalf, RELISH all the opportunities for pruning and correction that come your way. Stretch and practice your gifts, but don’t be eager for responsibilities you are not ready to walk in. Surely Joseph thought his time had come when he got that wise dream interpretation, but he had to wait two more years. God was preparing him for a certain time. A CERTAIN TIME. Striving in the dungeon would have done no good. How humble he had to be before he went before the Pharoah to interpret that dream. It was a hard dream. It determined the fate of nations. 

What can you do while you wait? Enjoy the fellowship of the Lord. Learn what is His voice and what is not. Do what God instructed Jeremiah to do in Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you unsearchable things you could not know.”

Savor the revelation God gives you. Hide it in your heart until he makes it come to pass. Test those words. Speak out only what he gives you permission to say. Cherish the rest and let it give you joy. Live in humility as David did. Learn from him. Jesus himself was called a “son of David”. What an honor.

Corrective Authority is in YOUR TONGUE

God is shaking free speech loose and it is setting the nation free!

As I was praying and worshipping this morning, the verse “Life and death are in the POWER of the tongue,” came to me over and over again. I felt a shift in my spirit around this verse. I realized we have heard this verse and many times and some have felt it only as a warning to “watch our words”, but the LORD is saying something different to me today. We’re trying to be SO careful about what we say so that we represent Jesus well, or don’t offend people. It’s time to disregard the voice of the accuser and read that verse again!

“Life and death is in the POWER of the tongue.”

I turned on a worship video where they began with Holy Spirit order. To some it may have sounded like chaos, but all just made their own noise of praise to the Lord, then at some point, they began a song in unison. I think this is how God works. We let out what is in us individually, praying in the spirit and truth, and as we yield to HIS Spirit, he brings us into a united song. I noticed that they didn’t have a lot of skill as we measure skill in our performance orientated society. They would never make the worship team in most of our churches. But what was obvious was that they were WORSHIPPERS and that they worshipped the Lord with all of their heart with what they had. I found myself with freedom to breakout in my own voice as I worshipped WITH them as children of God… and my focus was on the Lord.

As I worshipped, I saw the tongues of the people of God on fire releasing life wherever they go. Proclaiming God’s divine order over themselves and the nation, proclaiming the good God wanted to bring and ending the reign of the ungodly.

FREE speech is our right in this nation. Thank God.

I felt the Spirit move me as I worshiped and I loosed my tongue to speak aloud about the nation. I was alone with my teenage son, but he was there to agree and hear. As I spoke aloud the things that bubbled up about our nation I saw wonderful things! God ordained order coming.

Awareness of our Constitution rose up in me. What a miraculous document that is!  I saw the foundational TRUTH established by it and God’s order in it. The truth that this is a nation of free speech. We HAVE free speech, yet we have been believing lies that we don’t. The muzzle Christians have felt covering their mouths is their own imagination, something to be cast down. We have free speech to share about Jesus.

“You will also declare a thing,
And it will be established for you;
So light will shine on your ways.” (Job 22:28)

God began to expand my understanding of a scriptural truth. “

Romans 2 “11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;….
16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

Equality is God’s order, fair treatment, like it or not. He doesn’t give one free speech and not another. As this truth became evident, the knowing happened in my spirit that that there IS no muzzle on the body of Christ in this nation because our Constitution guarantees our right to free speech without punishment. It is our own responsibility if we don’t believe it or act upon it.

I continued to worship and decided to allow prophesy to come forth. I opened my mouth and yielded to to God for the nation. I saw a vision of a person leaning over an open Bible, quickly flipping the pages with hunger, saying “I need to know what’s in here!” God is putting hunger in the hearts of people. They will recognize the Bible as truth! I realized that God’s word WILL be exalted in this nation, restored to its place and position of honor, not just at home, but in the school and in the government as well. He is exalting his Word!

As I saw this I saw a shaking happening, I felt the weight of it. I realized that as God’s order is spoken in faith, nothing we’ve been standing on that is not truth will be able to stand in a shaking like this. ONLY the things that are firm and true will endure and

Isaiah 59:19 will come to pass..

“From the west, people will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along.”

In my spirit, I “knew” with conviction that a shaking was increasing in response to the words of truth that are being spoken by God’s people. I saw the earth responding and knew the plates of the earth would be shifting as a result of this and that an earthquake would be the result, even now. ‘It may be right now,” I thought. Then I felt urgency that it would not be limited to one place, but it will trigger others. I do not say this lightly, but with awareness of the challenges that come with natural disasters. But when the words that were in agreement with the Lord and his word went forth, the earth moved.

Yes, there may be some hardship. But as that thought came and tempted me with grief, I felt that God had an answer for us. I began to speak “God is going to reveal a short word in scripture that will become a truth for us all.” I didn’t know what they were when I said that, but immediately after I said the first part, I saw the words “GOD IS PROVIDER” fill in the blank space I saw.

I believe this is the word he is speaking over individuals and over the nation right now, over nations.

GOD IS PROVIDER.

The things we have relied upon as our comfort, our strength and our sources of security are being removed. We read the words of scripture, “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.” That is a declaration that invites alignment every time we say it! We have invited God’s divine order into our lives and our nation. Unity and order comes one knee of surrender at a time. We want God to be the head of this nation so clean up is happening. The idolatrous things we stand on are being removed. It’s a temporary shaking, momentary light affliction, but in the end, there will be fields of freedom to run through.

So what can we do to bring this amazing freedom and solid ground? …..

The Spirit of Truth lives in every believer. Let Him loose to flow out like a river of thanks and praise. Yield your heart and give him access to your voice. Your voice matters. When we confess righteous things with our mouth, out loud, we break contracts of agreement with darkness that we don’t even realize we have spoken. We come in agreement with abundance and out of agreement with lack. Jesus spoke of the promised spirit in John 7:

“37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified”

A side note: This yielding may allow some of you to speak in tongues who have never been able to use this gift. I realized today that speaking in tongues is “yielding our tongues” to God for his use because, “life and death are in the POWER of the tongue.” We need to give him permission to take over, not just our tongues, but our attention and our time. Offer ourselves as an offering to him in worship and places of rest with him and we will find that all the things of this earth fall away from our attention. Peace will be restored in us and as we yield our tongues in these moments of worship and adoration, his words of divine order will pour forth, if we only open our mouths.

Illustration to close:
I had a dream last night where I travelled to different places in the world. In one scene, a man was standing very close to me. He was of a non-Christian faith. I felt the awkwardness of our differences at first, but then I allowed myself to remember the Lord and didn’t focus on him. I began to sing a quiet tune, not to him, but right near him. My attention was on God, my wonderful Savior. I sang, “Jesus loves me this is KNOW for the Bible tells me SO.” He said something about how he may not agree, but I didn’t really “hear him” or take any concern about it. I just said, “That’s ok. I believe it and I’m singing it.” God’s presence surrounded me and must have touched him, but my focus wasn’t on him, but on adoration of the Lord. He had a choice to believe it, or not.

(For alignment with God’s word. I suggest this further reading: Haggai)

Goodbye disappointment, condemnation and fear of failure!

Romans 4:15 “For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.”

There are so many ways guilt, shame and condemnation can get a hold of our thinking, but IF we remember what faith guarantees us, we will no longer be bothered by those voices. The choice is to live by faith and to understand what that means. We need to go back to what we did at first. That doesn’t mean what I did at first, or what YOU did at first, it means where grace from faith originated… with Abraham. Let’s look and see what Romans 4 has to say about it. I made a short video, less than 15 minutes to help you move from law based thinking to grace based revelation.  This isn’t all inclusive, but it may help you get on the right track to an “aha” moment if you need one.

Today’s Porch Chat: Romans 4:15

Do you feel like weeping? I do.

Jesus is coming soon!

How often have we heard this said. It’s easy to think.. “yes, he’s been saying that for 2,000 years.. what is SOON anyway, and what does it mean that he is coming?” 

These are good questions. 

What I can say, is that his prophets are weeping…Scripture says that “God does nothing without revealing it to his servants the prophets.”  You may not believe there are prophets anymore. Who are these people anyway? They are those who are wired to know what God is feeling and what is happening.  Sometimes we don’t even understand why we feel a certain way, but God speaks to us of his plans and we don’t even recognize it sometimes. 

I had a dream last night and all I remember is saying, “Inside, I can just feel weeping all of the time. I could weep at any moment I will let it out.” I have heard other intercessor friends talking about weeping coming over them. 

So, this morning, I sat down in my chair and out of my mouth began to flow the song lyrics, “Spirit of wisdom open my eyes. Spirit of revelation, open my eyes.”  I felt the tears come again and I saw what it would look like to face Jesus, not just in a brief thought, but if he came right near me, face to face and looked at me. Oh how his purity would penetrate my soul! I can’t help it…I just want to weep. Even now it is stirring in my chest and my eyes are close to tears. 

This is how I know, Jesus is coming soon. I know he will encounter all in one way or another. He is coming to prepare a pure and spotless bride. I am weeping and God is revealing the places in my heart that are corrupt, that were self-centered. The places where I had other cobwebs that blocked pure love. You may have them too. We all have them. They block the radiance of Christ from shining in us and through us. I have had moments of radiance and I know the feeling of it. It is bliss. It is pure love. It includes utter peace and comes with an incredible amount of authority and revelation. I’ve had a taste of it hear and there, but God wants us to walk in more, so we can light up the world with his love. 

Jesus is coming. His Kingdom is at hand. 

Because he wants to reach the world and he’s going to make us “reflective” and “inspiring”. He’s going to breathe through us and winds of change will come and the culture will change. Yes. The culture will change. Knowledge of God will be everywhere.

I don’t despair in hopelessness about the state of this country, because for years, God has been showing me what will come as a result of this wave of destruction we are seeing all over the land. There will be a turnaround in the White House. It will again be a “white” pure house. Revival, personal revival, is coming to this land. The nation will be singing one song of adoration to the King of Kings. All will know him. “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the GLORY of the Father.” 

I know Jesus is near because I feel the conviction in my heart to just weep. There is nothing much to say, but to weep, because he is so close. When holiness comes that close, we all will weep. 

It feels good to weep. It is like God is washing my soul clean and debris is floating away with it. 

Do you remember old teachings that real men don’t weep, or that it’s weak to cry? 

That is the voice of pride speaking. How deeply rooted it goes into our soul, masking itself as protection, but it is destruction. God redeems through water, sometimes a few drops at a time. He does it with great love and great wisdom… through knowledge of his kindness. 

A Few Simple Words Heal the Soul

LET YOUR WORDS BE FEW….because that’s all you need to be free!

My confessions of today. I share this because I enjoy the mercy and forgiveness we have in Christ, and so that if YOU are battling right now, you may find power in MY testimony. There is POWER in the confession of our mouth. 

God gave us authority so the actual words we speak are powerful. Jesus said the truth will set us free. Truth reverses negative things we’ve come in agreement with and renews joy in our lives. When we lose joy we can become weak and weary… and sometimes are more prone to sickness too. 

The Bible says also, “let your words be few.” Simple confessions of a few words, not just confessed once, but said over and over, are medicine to our soul. Mumble the truth, or say it louder if you like. But let it be like a weapon against the contrary spirits that have taken residence in your life. 

Those contrary thoughts create strongholds that hinder our growth. As we pray, or mumble in submission to God, revelation often bubbles up. Hidden things come to light, sometimes causing us to see the places where we have cracks in our armor or where we’ve blocked his perfect love.  Since I know God WANTS to give me his perfect love, I simply have to agree to receive it. So, I mumble, “I receive your perfect love…” over and over until I it boots out the things that are NOT perfect love, like fear.

Hebrews 10:14 reads “because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are BEING sanctified.”

I praise God daily that when He looks at me he sees the white robe of Jesus. I have His Spirit within me joined with my own spirit. But, sanctification is still taking place in my soul. I have come so far, but I am still at his mercy daily as he uncovers places I have not yet seen or yielded to His grace. Oh, how often there are things we can’t see that are causing offense or bitterness.

Jesus, himself is our great Deliverer. He leads us though places we’d rather not go and takes our hand, smiling all the way… because he’s not worried. I love that I am a child of God and that my Father is not worried.

There are many simple words that can bring deliverance to our soul. Here are the few simple words I’ve confessed aloud this week that have brought freedom in the midst of a sudden onset of pain that led to a dizzying day of headache and fog. I know that everything that comes against me is an opportunity to grow and stretch in my faith in some way, so I chose to engage in the battle and get reward as I diligently sought out God’s truth that would set me free.  I want to seal up cracks or holes in my heavenly armor so no arrows get in the next time. Knowing we have a weakness always should lead us to Christ who strengthens us, who strengthens our faith.

Some simple words that could change your life. There are many things we can meditate on, but these are treasures that can set you free.

1)   “Jesus, I honor you as deliverer….” ( When you speak it, know that Jesus is real. He is present. He is there FOR you to honor. In each of the short phrases in this blog, speak the words until they have an effect.)

2).   “I lack nothing.” (Psalm 23)

…. As I chanted this, I realized how abundant God’s resources are…

3)    ”Foolishness” came to mind. 

Foolishness? I don’t think I’ve ever confessed that one before, but surely doubt is foolishness. God knows his immense goodness and tells us that in the word, so it IS foolishness to doubt God’s provision and goodness.

I renounced foolishness aloud, because this had to change and my sin had to be confessed with my mouth. How could I doubt God’s goodness like that? But, countless times I had. God, I confess and repent of foolishness and lay that at your feet. I was tired it, so I yawned and it left. 

I felt the Lord’s presence and work in my body and soul and realized this was having an effect. 

Oh Lord, how good you are and how easy it is to underestimate your goodness! How can I help but be grateful? (I had a few new simple words to confess now.)

4) I am so grateful. 

I began to speak “I’m so grateful”, over and over, until it flooded my soul. Then I remembered that an attitude of gratitude leads to joy. Joy is our strength. The devil just wants to steal our joy so he can launch a full on assault.  He can’t stand joy, because he is SO miserable himself. All he can try to do is make us miserable.  

So I launched the attack of gratitude.

I started with being grateful for my dog. He wanted to come outside too, and sit on the porch. I had not been too welcoming of our dog, but God loved him, so I knew I had to love what God loved. I began to thank God for my dog. Blessings came to minds….
He’s a loyal dog, a loving dog, a thankful dog. He enjoys the little things. I started to feel closer to him and had a desire to bless him… 

How simple it is to change our hearts. 

“I am so grateful”…. I kept it going…

I am so grateful for my husband. I’m so grateful for my husband… God brought to my remembrance the many good things and joy continued to come out and strengthen my spirit. 

And soon I wanted to make him lunch for the day…. 

Music to feast your soul on while you pray

Feast On Jesus, The Perfecter of Our Faith

1 Peter 2:2-3 
“Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Have you ever seen a baby crawl toward something interesting that was also potentially dangerous? When my kids were small, just learning to crawl I was always keeping watch seeing what they might go for next. Where is the shiny thing that would catch their attention.

God often speaks in parables in our dreams. I had a dream last night that shows the troubles we face when we remain babies in Christ and neglect to learn from our experiences. In the dream, I was sitting on the floor in a room with an infant who was learning to crawl. He had his back to me and was facing a partially open door that was cracked open. His eyes lit up and offered he went! He started crawling toward it eagerly. Knowing danger loomed, I reached out to grab him, thinking,  “Someone could come through that door, push it open from the other side and it will hit the baby.”

Did the baby ask for my approval to crawl away to the open door? No, in fact, the baby’s gaze is NOT on me, but on the door of temptation. I quickly tried to grab the baby, but he was too fast, too eager to get to the door. In the next moment, some men came through the door, pushing it open and sure enough, the baby got bonked on the head.

I and the men gathered ‘round the baby and looked down on his poor little head. “Oh, boy,” I thought. “This wasn’t the first time this baby had done this same thing.”  There was a red spot and even scars where “baby that-away”  had been bonked before, and he obviously hadn’t learned YET.  I relayed to the concerned men that the pediatrician said that the baby’s head would be able to heal, even with multiple bonks because his skill tissue was still soft, but it was surely a sad sight! Would he learn? I hoped so! Thanks be to God that we can continue to grow and heal.

In the scripture above, we read, “…long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Even when we get a taste of God’s goodness, it’s important that we keep our eyes fixed on him and allow him to guide us with the gaze of this eye, as Jesus looked to his Father continually to see what he was doing. We must learn how to navigate each new task or destination with discernment and must CHOOSE to keep our focus on Jesus.

“… long for pure spiritual milk…” What is pure spiritual milk?

I thought of this example.

God teaches us about how to grow up through the parable of human infant bonding and development. A baby is of nursing age has is not able to focus beyond the distance from the breast to his parent’s face. Beyond that, it will all be fuzzy and unclear.  As they grow, however, the things in the room around them become SO interesting as they can see farther and farther away. Have you ever tried to feed a distracted baby? They are constantly turning their heads away, turning away from the source of the milk. Sometimes they lack a full meal because of this. Time just runs out.

How are we like that in our walk with Jesus? We take in a little bit of Jesus, soak in a little bit of the Spirit, or try to read a little bit of scripture, and then we get distracted.  What distracts you?

My dream baby, baby that-away,  was tempted by a shiny light coming through an open door, so he turned his back on me and went off on his own. Do we do that in our walk with God? Sometimes we forget to include God in our decisions, or we just vier away a little bit and entertain a thought that pulls us down.  Jesus said in John 15:5 “…Apart from me, you can do nothing.” In the dream, I could not save the baby from its own ignorant idea. I was not in control of the baby. The baby had free will and would reap the consequences of his decision. Fortunately, the “doctor” in the dream said he could heal and hopefully would learn eventually not to run off without wisdom.

If want to mature, we have to fight that distraction and choose to stay in constant contact, in deeper intimacy with Christ. In order for Jesus to see what his Father was doing, he had to have his eyes on him always.

To remain in the peace of God, we must dwell in His presence, feed on his words, not be just snackers. If you’ve been a parent, you may have had a young child who preferred to “graze” between meals and then not eat their dinner at dinner time. As parents, we have to be sure to teach our kids the self-control necessary to just graze so they are hungry enough for a meal. Otherwise they’d try to live on Goldfish crackers and juice!  Snacking is not as fulfilling as a full meal and it doesn’t leave us satisfied for long. Likewise, spiritual snacking will not be enough to keep us in constant peace.

Let’s go back to the thought of craving pure spiritual milk. Think about how many times a newborn needs to nurse? This is a reminder that we can’t do much on our own before we need to return to our source of nourishment, Jesus.

I think of those sweet moments when I held my children and they looked up at my face, trusting me with no fears, no judgements. They didn’t think they knew better, so they never argued. They just consumed and gazed. Isn’t that the way to bliss with Jesus? We just gaze at him and consume what he pours out to us in return.

I pray God’s blessing on you today and offer this prayer you may want to pray…

God,  I want to gaze at you with continued adoration. Draw me to you. Take me deeper into your presence. Fill me with hunger for you and all you have. I believe there is healing in your body and blood, and mercy in the waters of your grace. God, you are the rock I will stand on. Take me deeper into your gospel of good news, where freedom is truly found. Give me CRAVING for you and willingness to stay close to you. Teach me to swim in the clear deep waters, to go deeper so I’m free of the murky bottom. I choose to dwell in you Lord. Thank you for a place of peace in your arms. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

Reading recommendation: Jesus said in John 15: 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Dwell in the words of Jesus and consume his heart for you in this chapter.

There’s a wonderful song that gives us a picture of how we can escape the cares of this world…

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look FULL into his wonderful face, and the things of earth WILL grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.