Lisa Great

Have you ever asked yourself why all the good news scriptures are in the distant future? People that have an end times view of everything has to get worst for Jesus to come, put all verses that defeat the enemy into a heavenly reality not an earthly one. But that is changing, slowly, but steadily.

I was reading Isaiah 27 this morning and it says, “In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent; Leviathan, that twisted serpent; and He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.” The question is, in what day?

To answer this question we have to go back to Isaiah 23:1-3 to find out who is Isaiah speaking about, “The burden against Tyre. Wail you ships of Tarshish…Be still you inhabitants in the coastland, you merchants of Sidon; whom those who cross the sea have filled. And on great waters the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the River, is her revenue; and she is the marketplace for the nations.”

In context Leviathan is tied to Tyre and Sidon and the name could be a title for their leader. For bible students, this ties to Babylon in Revelation 18, who is spoken of in similar fashion and who Ezekiel the prophet speaks of as the Prince of Tyre.

The point being, is we must read things in context in order to understand, when that day is. That day is not some way distant day in our future, it was a day in their reality when God dealt with Leviathan, who is connected to Tyre and Sidon. When we read it in context, the fear of Leviathan is removed and we realize victory over that sea serpent was given to YHVH.

There is so much good news in the word of God and when we read things in context, rather than pull verses in order to create a narrative, we will rejoice in God’s authority and victory. The fleeing serpent has been defeated. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

My husband has a phrase I remember often, he says, “Prevention is better than cure.” To prevent something means you have to prepare ahead of time. Prevention does not happen in now time and neither does cure. Prevention happens before time and cure happens after time.

Praying Psalm 56:3-4 this morning it says, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word); In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?”

This Psalm was penned by David, so the flesh he was speaking of was warriors wanting to kill him physically, not some word curse placed on him, but genuine life or death situations. And this man says, Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.

The only way to trust God is to know God. We cannot decree when we are afraid fear not, as though it is some pixie dust that will remove all our fears. Trust is a preventative measure we take before we are afraid. So when something that is fearful comes, we have already been practicing trust.

Trust comes from knowing someone, spending time with them, getting to know how they respond in different situations, listening to their heart, watching their actions. If you spend little to no time with God in His word getting to know his nature and character, it will be hard to trust Him when you are afraid.

Trust is a preventative measure. Fear will come to even those who trust in God, but when it does come they have practiced trust in peace, so when fear comes they are not greatly moved, even though they are moved, for fear is a force we are all susceptible to.

I pray you spend time in God’s word getting to know God. Then when fear or something fearful comes, you are armed with trust in the God who can protect you from all harm. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

Do you ever read a scripture and your experience does not match what it says? It is easy to say that is not true, or that does not apply to me. But what if we were reading it wrong, for the word of God is truth, so it must be right. This means we have something off in the way we think, rather than what the Word is actually saying.

Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your burden on the LORD; and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”

This is a promise that is powerful, but I do not know many people that can say, I am the righteousness of God and I have not been moved. Therefore, we would read this verse and say that is not true. Or we would preach it and say, you do not know you are righteous; you have not prayed enough; you are still holding onto something.

Okay maybe those are just statements that have been made to me over the years. But what if you have done everything you have been told and you still feel moved, you still know you are righteous but you cannot shake what you sense is moving you? Then what?

Well, this morning, I was reading this verse and the Holy Spirt whispered in my ear, “The righteous are like trees, they have roots, so they are not moved, but they also have leaves and when the wind blows the leaves shake, the branches sway.”

Our situations can make us feel like we are being moved, but we are not moved, we still believe in Jesus, we still love people, we still pray, so why do we feel moved? Because the winds of adversity are blowing, the leaves are falling, the branches are breaking, but God says, “You are the righteous, you are not moved; cast your burdens on me. I got you!”

Friends, everyone one of us gets shaken, but the covenant we are in with Christ makes us unmovable. Not because we don’t shake, break and lose leaves, but because He is a covenant keeper and He never changes His mind about us. We are unmovable, for He is not moving. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

Sports have a way of teaching you life lessons, if you are a learner. I have been playing pickleball for over a year now and I have learned so many things in the past year, playing this sport.

Pickleball is a multigenerational sport, it is no respecter of persons, age, size, weight, anyone can play, and the more you play, the more you learn. One of the first things I used to do is smash the ball, almost every time. I thought my physical strength was the way to win.

Now that I have played for a year now, I realize, the people who do not know how to play pickleball with strategy, play it with strength, but the professionals rely on short drop shots or dinks across the court to win. Strategy is key to winning in pickleball not smashing through strength.

I was playing the other day with two younger men, both of them played two of us older women and they played us with spinning serves and smashing balls. But myself and another seasoned woman, played them with soft consistent strategy. This through them off, for their strength could not beat our strategy.

Proverbs 24:5-6 says, “A wise man is more powerful than a strong man, and a man of knowledge than a man of might; for it is by wise guidance that you wage war, and the victory is due to the wealth of counselors.”

Friends, we are being invited to employ wisdom and gain knowledge as we learn in life. Strength does not win battles, wisdom and knowledge does. Your head is more powerful than your biceps and the older I get the more I realize this.

Oh I can smash the ball with the best of them on the court, but if I place the ball in the right place at the right time, the points rack up faster than if I just smash it. Plus, placement of the ball takes strategy, and you do not get known as a one trick pony in pickleball or life. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

When a people do not feel safe, they operate in survival mode. When survival has been the protection, safety does not feel safe, does not feel secure. Safety is scary to those who have learned to survive.

Survival is a gift from God to get us through a hard season, a challenging situation, and unexpected reality. But survival was never meant to be our lifelong reality. We were not made to survive, we were made to feel safe.

The challenge we face is we are more familiar with survival than we are with safety, so we create an eschatology that calls us to escape, rather than to feel safe on earth. We have been trained to believe heaven is the only safe place, so we survive earth, but never feel safe here.

This reality hinders our ability to see, hear or understand what God is doing in our lives. We push away gifts, we run off safe people, we deny we need anyone, because we don’t feel safe, we only know how to survive. Anxiety is a sign of not feeling safe; anger is an emotion that reveals a lack of safety; if we were honest our issue is a lack of feeling safe.

God is healing nations, of their survival mode, but we resist it, because we don’t know how to feel safe and we don’t trust anyone. This is why when we read in Isaiah 23 “The Lord has given a commandment against Canaan to destroy its strongholds.” And “Her gain and her pay will be set apart for the Lord; her gain will be for those who dwell before the Lord to eat sufficiently and for fine clothing.” We struggle to believe it.

If you don’t feel safe you will never experience real prosperity, which is why 3 John says, “May you prosper even as your soul prospers.” We want money to feel safe, but money cannot create safety, the Holy Spirit is safety; Yahweh is safety; Jesus is safety. Our trust must be in Him to feel safe.

I am telling you, God is healing nations, prospering nations, making nations safe, for people need to feel safe, but we must repent of loving surviving and fearing safety. Safety is not our enemy it is our security. Safety is who God is. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

When I first got saved in the late 80’s and began my walk in the early 90’s we had a lot of Christian paraphernalia. I mean my 1978 Dodge Hornet had Jesus bumper stickers all over it. I had the fish too. I had t-shirts that said, “Gods Gym” and had bible verses on them. When I got saved, I got louder than I was before I was saved and I was loud.

I know volume does not equal authority, so I learned to turn the volume down. The longer I was in church the more tame I became. I never lost passion, but I did gain maturity. Now that I am mature, I find myself getting bolder, louder, stronger, not because of excitement like when I was first saved but because of a deep residing knowing of who God is.

When I first got saved, I had zeal, but I did not have intimate knowledge. Zeal looks good on camera, zeal draws a crowd, zeal feels good in the service, but deep seeded intimate knowledge is what remains. When the storms come, I am anchored in love. When the voices accuse, I am founded on the truth of who I am. When the finances are funny, I know who God is.

The wonder twin powers of the gospel are zeal and intimate deep seeded knowledge, not just one or the other. Maturity with passion is a force that cannot be stopped, diverted or altered. Maturity stops the tossing, anchors the identity and solidifies the reality that He alone is God.

One of the posters I had on my wall when I first got saved was filled with the names of God and words about the nature of God. But one word I do not recall being taught is that God is a replenisher. This is a name for God that has carried me through many types of losses. I live with open hands in everything, because I know God is a replenisher.

Zeal is not a feeling, it comes from intimate knowledge of who God is. I sing with all my heart no matter what I am going through personally, no matter the loss I am feeling, for I know God is a replenisher. I give generously because I know He is a replenisher. I love deeply, because I know He is a replenisher. I pray you know the God who is a replenisher, it will mature you and will give you zeal and knowledge for every season. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

One of the hot topics in Christianity is about God answering our prayers, God meeting our desires. We talk a lot about what we want, what we need. The challenge is this makes it a very one sided relationship. Our God is not an idol, our God is not a genie in a bottle, that we rub and get granted three wishes. Our God is relational, He is personal, He is a communicator, He is reciprocal.

All other religions serve a God that they believe does not speak, does not hear, demands to be obeyed, is wrathful, harsh and demands people do what they say. Other religions do not have a relational God, that is unique to Christianity. But no other religion has a God who manifested in the flesh, died for our sins, conquered sin, hell and the grave. Then rose again alive.

Christianity serves a Living God, a speaking God, a healing God, a prayer answering God. The God of Christianity is relational, which means He has desires, He has wants, He has thoughts. Psalm 51:6 says, “Behold; You (YHWH) desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.”

Our God desires truth in our inward parts. Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active sharper than a two edged sword, separating the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.” Why does the word separate things inside of us? Because God desires truth in our inward parts!!!

Truth is medicine, truth is healing, truth is liberating, truth is life. Jesus said, “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) Truth is a person and that person wants to heal you, deliver you, save you, redeem you, restore you, this is why He desires truth in your inward parts.

I pray you would receive not resist the truth in whatever form it takes. Lies are destroying us, truth is liberating us. I pray we are people who can handle the truth, for only the truth will set us free. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

When the bar is low, many people can get over it; when the standards are low, many people feel like they are meeting them. We tend to surround ourselves with people who are at the same standard we are, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This maintains our status quo rather than challenges us to grow.

Watching the World Cup yesterday yielded an understanding of the standard set in sports for athletes to obtain. Even people who come off the bench as a substitute must be at the standard of the starters. Seeing a man who was not a starter score the only goal in the game, was evidence of his level of training, even though he wasn’t a starter.

How many of us are not starters in whatever field we are in, so we do not think there is a need to rise to a higher level? How low is the standard in various areas of life, just so we feel good about ourselves? We think lowering the standard helps people, but it actually harms them.

I am reading the book of Job and I have been lingering in the first two chapters, because this man, Job, who was not a Hebrew, but a Gentile, had such a high level of character. I can’t rush through this.

Job loses all his possessions and his children die, all ten of them and his first recorded response is, “Naked, I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Who do we know that speaks like this during times of loss? The standard of Job is high, very high.

Then if that was not enough, he gets struck with boils from the top of his head to the soles of his feet and he says, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and shall we not accept adversity?” I am undone. This man’s character and understanding of God, trust in God is the standard.

I do not know who inspires you to come up higher, but as I read Job, I realize this man trusted God in a way, that no matter what happened, he was not changing his mind about God. No mention of Jesus, and yet we see a standard of trust that is undeniable and I am undone. Church, the bar must be raised. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

Culture has a way of causing us to miss what the Word of God actually is saying. Because our culture is so much a part of who we are, we read our Bible culturally, and miss the rich imagery God is speaking to us.

I was praying Psalm 49 this morning and it says in verse 14 “The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.” Next I am reading Psalm 30 and it says, in verse 5 “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

I wanted to know what does morning mean? Morning in Hebrew means breaking forth; light breaking through darkness. In Hebrew the day starts with evening in the darkness (Genesis 1 – evening and morning) and moves toward light (morning). Night comes first and morning is the turning point where God works.

As I leaned into this, I realized how we in the West at least, have been taught that the day begins in the morning and ends in the evening. We start with light and end with darkness. No wonder we have been taught things are getting darker, the world is getting worst. It is cultural narrative, not biblical.

Genesis 1 started in the dark and then God said, Let there be light. We have been told it is getting darker, but the Bible says from Genesis to Revelation things are getting brighter. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, it does not get any brighter than that.

Christ in us is the hope of glory is Light in us. The gospel of John is all about Light, Life and Love. We even sing, the cross was the darkest day in history, but we also believe in resurrection life and light.

Friends, the night is almost over, the day is breaking. It is not getting darker, but even if it is, don’t forget the darkest hour is right before dawn. We are moving toward morning, toward breaking forth, toward light not deeper darkness. At least that is what the Bible says. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

What have you seen? What have you heard? Did you know something is established by two witnesses? When you see and hear, something is established. Why do you think the narrative war plays out on the streets, with flags, with movies, with billboards? Seeing and hearing is the establishment of a thing.

Isaiah 6 says, Isaiah was commissioned to go and preach to a people who had eyes but could not see, ears but could not hear, because if they had eyes that could see and ears that could hear they would return to the Lord and be healed.

Jesus said in Luke 4, I have come to bind up the broken hearted, set the captive free and give sight to the blind. John 9 speaks of two blind men sitting on the side of the road and they heard Jesus walking by so they shouted Son of David, have mercy on us. They were brought to Jesus and Jesus said, what do you want me to do for you? They said, we want to see. They heard now they wanted to see.

What have you seen? What have you heard? This is what is established in you. But did you know you never stop hearing and you never stop seeing, so more than your current reality is established in you, but you have to choose a new established narrative in you.

Job 42 says, I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Psalm 48 says, As we have heard, so we have seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God; God will establish it forever.

We have seen miracles, we have heard testimonies, we have watched baptisms, we have heard sermons. The Truth who is Jesus Christ is in you, it is established reality. Stop ruminating on negative established narratives in you, change the channel, there is good news inside of you. For we all have seen and heard that the Lord is good!!!! Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org