No Fault

In the past year, I have been learning a lot about grace. I know that when Jesus died on the cross, He took all sin and ALL of sin's consequences with Him. So over the past year, I have been trying to wrap my brain around this fact. Since ALL consequences died on the cross, why are we as Christians still experiencing consequences?

I have a couple of thoughts on that. #1-We still believe that God finds fault in us. We don't truly believe that when God looks at us, He sees the finished work of Jesus. We believe that when He looks at us, He sees the wrong we have been doing. This leads us to believe that He is disappointed in us. NOT TRUE!!!!!! We are His righteousness, thanks to Jesus! When God looks at us He sees His righteousness! He finds NO FAULT in us. Jesus took the punishment for sin on the cross. And God cannot punish sin twice! It would go against everything He is. This is what Jesus died for, people! So that we could experience the free life, life free from sin and the pain it brings us. So then why do I have such trouble getting this through my thick skull? I know it to be true, and yet I am still living with consequences and condemnation from the enemy. Why?

I believe God showed me the answer to that. #2-We still find fault in ourselves. Just saying this makes me sad, but I know its true. Every time I do something I know I shouldn't do, or don't do something I know I should do, I find fault with myself. It is hard not to focus on the fact that I was wrong, even though I know God doesn't focus on it. So why can't I see myself as He sees me. I need to focus on Jesus' obedience instead of my lack thereof. This is what God sees. This is how I will experience full grace.

I am tired of the enemy robbing me! I am tired of partial grace. I want it all, and I want it NOW! I am talking about a life free from sickness! I am talking about a life where people aren't dying from diseases that cannot be cured! And even a life where we don't get the common cold, because, duh, it died on the cross with Jesus! I am talking about a life of financial freedom, where out of our abundance, we can bless those who do not know Him! I am tired of the enemy stealing these things from us! I want MORE!

This is what I have been working on. God finds no fault in me; I find no fault in myself! God finds no fault in me; I find no fault in myself! Maybe if I write it 5000 times I will get it through my thick skull. Walking it out is the hard part, but I know it works. I have been putting it to the test here lately, and the minute I stop believing the consequences, they go away! But they come back later when I find fault in myself again. So I am going around in a nasty circle: no fault, fault, no fault, fault.

The minute I realize I am finding fault in myself again, I remind myself there is no fault and I quit believing the consequences. It is a frustrating process, but it is getting easier. I find that the more I do it, the quicker I go around the circle. Eventually there will be no circle, and I will have reprogrammed my brain to believe His TRUTH--that there is NO FAULT in me! Praise God! Glory to His Name!

Faithfully Obeying Him

Last night I had a dream. I don't remember anything about it, except that I was told to write down the vision. And that this would be the answer to my confusion.

I need to go back and give you some backround info. For about a month now, I have felt like I am running in circles. I cannot seem to get my brain wrapped around everything that is going on in my little world. My mind seems to be going ninety different directions. I need to focus! It has been very frustrating.

Well, I have been praying about it for a while, but not really submitting it to Him. I know; I know. Then I had a dream a little over a week ago(God uses dreams to show me things). I was at a carnival. I saw a man on a unicycle, juggling hats. The Holy Spirit showed me that I am juggling my thoughts because I am working from the flesh and not from faith.

So I started praying again. Lord, I get it, but I don't know what to do about it. Well, last night, I totally submitted everything to Him. I gave up. I am done trying to figure it out. Then I had the dream. Write down the vision. So I did. "What is the vision," you ask? Well, He told me to start with the things He has promised me. So here they are....

Every single person on my prayer list will be free from bondage. They will be healed and they will be free in 2010. There are 27 people on the list. IT IS FINISHED! That is the promise! I will cling to this unreasonably, no matter what I may see with my physical eyes. I choose to see with my heart. My heart knows the truth and it refuses to believe the enemies lies. I believe Him!

Chip and I will be completely debt free this year. We will be lenders and not borrowers. This is also a promise I am clinging to unreasonably, choosing to see with my heart.

And finally...I have a destiny. It is to walk in the supernatural. I will leave behind the things of this world and focus totally on the things of God. He is calling me to prove to His people(saved and unsaved) that He is a God of miracles. I am clinging to this one unreasonably too. It is the hardest one. Praise God! There are many out there who do not even believe this is possible. But I do. I believe with every fiber of my being that this is attainable here on earth. And I am putting every bit of my belief at the feet of Jesus. I have learned that this is where my belief is turned into faith. I recieve the faith He is giving me, and I am running toward my destiny. I will not be thwarted. I cannot say that there will be no doubt along the way, but I can say that it WILL NOT win! My God is GREATER than my doubt! He is greater than the lies, and He has a destiny for me. He has shown it to me. Now, all I have to do is run toward it with obedience. Faithfully obeying Him!

Thats the vision! It has been written!

The Agreement Stops Here!!!!!!

Do you ever realize just how much we agree with the enemy? Seriously, its ridiculous. If we get a pain in our chest area, we think, "There must be something wrong with my heart?" If we hear a bone pop and then our back starts hurting, we think, "I have to go to the chiropractor." If we get a letter in the mail saying our car insurance has gone up fifty dollars per month, we think, "Well that sucks!" Sometimes we even agree with him on our moods. Someone may say something to us, or do something we don't agree with, and before we know it, we've lost our peace. It never occurs to us that it could all be a lie. So we unknowingly agree with him.

This is what the Lord has been showing me lately. I agree with the enemy entirely too much. All he needs is my agreement and he'll have his foot in my door. If he doesn't get my agreement, he is powerless. When Jesus died on the cross, He set us free from the sin in our lives. We are now under grace. We are free. The enemy cannot hurt us...unless we let him.

Does this speak to anyone besides me? As the Holy Spirit has been showing me all of this, I have been getting mad. I am tired of the enemy. I am tired of his lies. I am tired of him stealing from me. I am tired of him attacking me and my people every day. I was heading down a road of frustration(I wasn't just heading down it, I was running down it...fast). I began praying for God to open my eyes to all the lies that I am believing. Its unbelievable how much I have been agreeing with the enemy. So what am I getting mad at him for. All I have to do is change it.

Now I am praying for God to open my eyes to all the ways the enemy is ATTEMPTING to lie to me. I want to cut him off at the pass. I am not going to believe his lies anymore. My God said that now is my time for manifestation, and I BELIEVE Him. He said He is not only restoring my inheritance, but restoring it DOUBLE! I CHOOSE God. Won't you join me?

At His Feet--Oh, to Dwell and Never Leave

Today was awsome! I finally set things right with God again. All rebellion is gone. I am back at that place of complete obedience, and let me tell you, it feels good! God showed me that all I had to do was obey and sit at His feet.

I began thinking things like "Its not fun being obedient" and "Why do I always have to be the good one?" I never dwelled on these thoughts for very long, but they were always there. God showed me this morning through the life of Samuel, that obedience is a sacrifice to Him. I do love Him and respect Him enough to obey. So yesterday, I started doing everything He told me to do and immediately repenting when I missed His voice(because He is showing me the minute I do something that is not His perfect will, which has been my constant pryer to Him for quite a while now).

He also showed me, through the life of Samuel(I am doing a study on David), that it is okay to be grieved by the disobedience of others. It is NOT okay to focus on their wrong choices(instead of Him), or to let my grief cause me to sin. Like Samuel, I am to take that grief and cry out to the Lord in intercession for them. It must be an immediate obedience, because the enemy is good at getting me to focus on how others are missing their blessing.

That leads me to the renewing of my mind. God has called me to turn my mind over to Him, and I CHOOSE to do so. He showed me that I don't have to think on every thought that enters my mind. So today, I started a process. Every thought that enters my head, that I am not absolutely positive came from Him, I cast it into a box(figuratively speaking). I then trust that if it was from God, He will bring it back to me. So basically, I am refusing to think on anything that is not from Him. Today was day 1 of this process, and the enemy trid to bombard me with his thoughts. As, the day went on, and I continued prevail(Praise Jesus!), the process did get easier. I know that as I continue to do this, I will eventually be thinking totally with the mind of Christ versus the mind of the world.

And the only way to get there is to stay at His feet!

Radical Obedience

Believe and obey. Obey and believe. These are the only two things that we have to do to walk in the supernatural with God. He only calls us to do two things! So why do they seem so very hard?

I have been walking in rebellion for 1 week now. God had been calling me to focus ONLY on Him, but I got caught up in focusing on disobedience. Well, guess what? Since I became so focused on disobedience and how much it hurt us, I, myself, started disobeying. I began doing the thing that I was hating. Why, you ask? Because I was focusing on it.

God showed me this morning that I started focusing on disobedience because I was trying to save a person that I love. I don't have that power. I am not the Almighty! He is! This is now part of my letting go process. I repented and now I CHOOSE to trust Him. I know that He will save this person from themselves and from their disobedience. And I know that there is nothing I can do to make it happen or to hinder the process. I also know that my disobedience and rebellion does not help the matter. And it definately does not help me.

The awsome thing is that through the whole thing, God was never mad at me. He still loves me just the same. My rebellion died on the cross with Jesus. Because of my faith in Jesus, when God looks at me, He sees righteousness. Glory to His name! How awsome is that?

So I am letting go. I CHOOSE to stop trying to save this person and anyone else for that matter. I CHOOSE to focus on God and seek His face with every minute I am given. I CHOOSE to radically obey Him, even when I don't feel like it, because I know that radical obedience takes me to a place where the miracles happen. I have had a glimpse of this place before, and I went running in fear. Well, now I am approaching again, but this time I do so boldly, with my new level of faith.

That's right. I finally accepted my new level of faith, and Jesus and I are only a few steps away from the other side. Praise God!

Fear Not

It really hurts to watch the people you love hurt themselves, knowing there is nothing you can do about it. You know there is nothing you can say, do or hit them with that will make them see that their pain is because of their own choices. It just hurts. If it hurts me this much, I cannot imagine how much it hurts Father God. Before I went down this though process, I cannot honestly say I had ever thought about how much my diobedience hurt Him. I knew it hurt those around me, and I even came to the realization of how much it hurt me, but I never really thought about Him.

He has shown me that my diobedience ties His hands. When I refuse to obey, I block Him from working in my life. The sad thing is, sometimes I do this even though I know better. Sometimes, I flat out rebel. Rebel, according to Webster, means to resist authority or control, to show or feel a resistance to something. Well, now, that is not letting go is it?

Then He showed me that I rebel because of fear. I am living in fear. Fear that He will not do what He says He will do. Fear that I am not who He says I am. I am not letting go because I don't trust Him to take care of things, and I don't trust me not to mess them up. There are 365 "fear not"s in the bible;one for every day. You would think that would be enough for me. I can tell you they are there, but I cannot tell you where they all are or what they say not to be afraid of. So I think I will start studying them. Hopefully I can gain more revelation on how to let go.

By the way, walking through one day of totally letting go started out fun and ended up in tears. But it is still fun, because I know how it will end. It will end with Him in control, and me in complete freedom. Glory to His Name! Yahweh Nissi, my God of Victory!

Let Go or Drown

He wants me to let go. Let go of what? Everything! I have struggled with this for over a month now. My inability(or should I say unwillingness) to let go is what has taken me backward in my journey with God. I don't know how to let go. And to be honest, I don't know that I want to. But I want to want to. Does that make sense?

He told me in late December that I didn't have to understand everything. So I stopped asking Him why all the time. I realized that if He wanted me to know, He would tell me. What I didn't realize is that this was just the beginning of the letting go process. I guess I was hoping that was it. Of course I was! I am a former control freak! And I find the longer I cling to the things of this world, the more I revert back into controlling my own life. I don't like it! I don't want to be in control again. I messed it up royally the first time. But how do I finish letting go?

He gave me the answer to that yesterday as I was talking with my pastor. I have to stop analyzing everything. As I let it soak in, He showed me that I analyze myself more than anything else. I was willing to let go of analyzing everyone and everything else, just not me. And the longer I put off letting go, the more I go back into old habits. Old habits suck!

So here's the thing...let go or drown. Last Wednesday, I took His hand and started walking on water with Him. On Friday, I let go of His hand, picked up the things of this world, and started treading water. I can still look up and see Him, but if I don't let go, I will soon drown. I can only hold my breath for so long. If I don't let go, I will be conformed to the things of this world. That is not what I want at all.

I choose to let go. I choose to give Him my mind and let Him transform it. He has shown me how to start, and I know that as I obey, He will show me how to continue. This too was won on the cross. Thank you Jesus! So the journey of letting go continues. As it turns out, I am willing when my only other option is drowning. And I don't want to be conformed to the things of this world. I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I give you my mind, Lord. I choose You.