Safe Walls?

My heart is heavy with the word “safe”.  I have been hearing it more often, seems we all just want to be safe.  We seem to have our reasons for that. Are we tearing down one wall, just to build another?

God is not safe, He’s good.  So do we trust Him that He has everything under control, or do we continue to take the safer road?  Americans are most guilty of this.  Outreach in the community is God’s work.  Are we really to tell Him, we choose to use a social services so that we can help people who are safe by our standards?  Do we really tell worship leaders how to plan according to what we think is most productive to a heart? Or do we believe that God is still the only one saving a heart?

Worship leaders are praying about what God wants in their services, God still knows best.

My life was filled with abuse, so yes I do know what I am talking about.  I just don’t choose to label myself as such. Why? Because God has freed me, my past no longer defines me.  Was there some magic, or certain worship, maybe a special book that brought me to this place? NO! It was God, and spending time with Him, asking Him all the tough questions, letting Him walk me through each day, teaching me to make different choices, Loving me through my pain.

I had to learn to forgive, I had no idea how easy it was, that choosing God’s way would be all I needed.  The burden lifted the second I choose to truly give it to God, and allow Him to handle things.  Submission to Him was nothing like the world had taught me.  It was more like laying back in the arms of the one who truly loved me. It was not a bitter hard thing to swallow.

The world labels everything.  But they have not been introduced correctly to us.  We are God’s children, beloved, free, Kingdom living and not at all elite.

Is following God safe by the worlds standards? No…but we are not of the world.  Where is our sense of adventure? desire? it may be caught up in a trust issue…Believe God that He is capable of anything this world may throw at us…HE got this! safe no..good yes

Lets’s not tear down one wall to build another…we just need to believe God and not just believe there is an God.

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Hearts in Chains

Ten years ago, God woke me up at 3 in the morning, and spoke to my heart very clearly.  He said “my bride is in bondage, she is asleep in it, wake her up, she must get ready. Believe me”  I know now that I did not fully understand.  I assumed it was about me. Bondage seemed to be my middle name.  I believed that the past some how molded me, and destroyed my future.  So living was more of doing with what I have.  

A few months later, I received a free ticket for a Beth Moore conference “Hearts set free”.  I didn’t know who she was, but I like free! and I knew in my heart, my own bondage needed to be resolved so that I could get ready and be wakened up.  She came on the stage, the very first words out of her mouth “God’s bride is in bondage, she is asleep and must wake up, she needs to get ready! Oh dear ones, God wants you to believe HIM.”   She now had my undivided attention! 

Over the years, I have learned to believe Him more, but there is always more to believe Him for.  Trust is an issue.  Abuse has taken a toll on many hearts, not just mine.  Knowing Him, is to believe Him.  He is believable! After studying through the Old Testament, God is trustworthy, 100% Truth, focused on his plan, and no one can defer Him.  Our actions do not change His thinking or His work.  

After we went through some things as a family, I seemed to have forgotten to just simply believe God.  I am doing this again.  My heart is reaching out to the abused, and asking “please believe Him”.  Forgiveness is not a feeling its a choice.  Choose it, even if you need to do it several times a day, God is strong enough to make it a heart thing for you, through your obedience to forgive.  It doesn’t have to be a one on one with the abuser, it just needs to be between you and God.  This will free your heart.  

Don’t you want to feel peace again? Or maybe feel peace for the first time?  Lay it all at the feet of God, He wants so much more for you than the life you live, HE wants your heart to be free.  He wants to take the bad and make it good.  He did not create you for the life you had, or chains that wrap your heart.  The church can not fix this for you, only God can fix His own creation.  

You are beautiful to Him, He rejoices that you are even thinking about Him.  Don’t wait…Go to Him now..He’s patiently waiting for you…Believe Him.

We Have Been Warned

All verses are taken from the ESV, and all italics are my own thoughts. I realize that the verses from Revelations are to the churches that are named, but it is also to us the “Church”. We really need to apply these warnings to ourself, and also be encouraged that HE has provided a way for us to overcome/conquer.  We live in a world where we compromise on so many things.  God’s word is not up for negotiation, HE said it, I believe HE means it.  Revelations is the only book that comes with a blessing and a curse..read and apply, blessing. Take away or add to it, curse.  Pretty intense huh? yeah it makes me tremble just writing it out here.

Oh Father God, help us to apply, help us to overcome.  So many tell me there are gray areas in your word, I am finding it difficult to imagine YOU a GOD of such great detail, to put gray areas to watch us stumble around to find our own way.  Please purify your bride, get us ready, and remind us to bow to no man in no way.  I know you are a GOD that has a great love for your children, at the same time I know YOU are a KING, Creator, Sustainer, and the writer of this great story and plan that you have orchestrated. Have mercy on us, we seriously are not getting it, or we are blinded and need you to heal our spiritual eyes.  No doubt we need YOU, and we can not do a thing without YOUR hand.  Please help us to be ready.

Ephesians 5:5
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Have you ever seen this verse? Have you ever fallen on your face before the KING of kings, and screamed “please do not let me be one of these, rid me of everything unpleasing to you, don’t stop purging me until it is gone”?  I have come on this verse several times, and each time, it reminds my heart of …

Philippians 2:12
Lights in the World
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

Hey I know the verses that say i am sealed with the HS, and my salvation is locked in..but there is a reason that these verses are in the Bible.  I am no theologian, but I believe God has the power to do anything HE chooses, and we are called to obedience.

1 John 5:4
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

1 John 2:14
I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Revelation 2:5-7, 13-17, 19-29

5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do  the works you did at first. If not,  I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of  the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of  the tree of life, which is in  the paradise of God.’

13 “‘I know where you dwell,  where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not  deny my faith even in the days of Antipas  my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of  Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might  eat food sacrificed to idols and  practice sexual immorality. 15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of  the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent. If not,  I will come to you soon and  war against them with  the sword of my mouth.17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone  that no one knows except the one who receives it.’

19 s “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and  to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but  she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he  who searches mind and heart, and  I will give to each of you according to your works. 24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call  the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I  do not lay on you any other burden. 25 Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works  until the end,  to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and  he will rule them with a rod of iron,  as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.28 And I will give him  the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Revelation 3:1-6, 8-13, 15-22

“‘I know your works. You have the reputation  of being alive,  but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up,  I will come  like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not  soiled their garments, and they will walk with me  in white, for they are  worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never  blot his name out of  the book of life.  I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

8 “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you  an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 Behold, I will make those of  the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold,  I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that  I have loved you.10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try  those who dwell on the earth. 11 I am coming soon.  Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize  your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him  a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him  the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem,  which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own  new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor,  blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you  to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and x the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes,  so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.20 Behold, I stand at the door and  knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers,  I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as  I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

Wondering what does it mean to lose your lampstand? lots of theologians have different takes on these scriptures, what if…GOD just means exactly what HE said.  Are we working out our salvation with fear and trembling or are we taking HIS love for granted, and pleasing ourselves blowing off obedience, and making a mockery of HIS forgiveness, cheapening HIS grace as if we deserve it, its a gift…HE IS GOD! HE WILL NOT BE MOCKED! scares me to death!