Lisa Great

My dear friend Carmen Howard has been on the theme of “WIND” as a word from the Lord for a while now. Because of her passionate pursuit of this word and what God is speaking to us through it, whenever I see the word wind, I pause and ask the Lord what is it you are saying about the wind to us? This morning, I was reading in James 1 and the word wind showed up and I immediately thought of Carmen, but it was way to early to call her and share some thoughts with her about this word. Therefore, I decided to write this mornings post with my thoughts on what the wind is saying in James 1.

James 1:5-6 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.”

Doubt drives us and tosses us with the wind. Immediately as I read this I realized if we feel driven or tossed to and fro by a wind, which can be words, circumstances, people’s expectations, etc. then the wind we are being driven and tossed by is not the wind of God. The wind of God doesn’t drive us or toss us, it lead us and guides us. Romans 8:14 says, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God;” and Galatians 5:16 says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” The wind of God does not drive us or toss us here and there, it leads us and guides us in the way we should go.

Two winds, both seeking to determine the direction our life takes. One wind drives us, tosses us and seeks to destroy us, the other wind, leads us, guides us and seeks to bless us abundantly with the fruit of the spirit. My friends, catch the wind of the Spirit of God and resist the wind of striving, It takes discernment to know what wind you are in, but the fruit of the wind will be obvious, for one produces the fruit of the flesh, the other produces the fruit of the Spirit. Thank you Carmen for loving the wind of God!!!

There is a song in my spirit, an anthem which rings inside of me, it is a clarion call from heaven, and announcement coming from the throne room. The message of the Lord is, “The kingdom of God is here! The kingdom of God is here!” It’s a song, a sound, a shout of praise, the kingdom of God is here, the kingdom of God is here. This is not a future coming event, this is a now time reality. It is a decree we will see. The kingdom of God is here, the kingdom of God is here. We will hear it, we will see it, we will know it to be true. The kingdom of God is here, the kingdom of God is here!

This message is singing, ringing in my spirit, it has such joy attached to it. As I was praying and hearing this inside of me, I got the sense from the Lord, the enemy has been cast down, the workers of iniquity have been captured and the lingering minions will flee as the church rises up in rejoicing at the revelation of the kingdom of God that is here. I saw in my spirit a time of great rejoicing of the likes we have never seen before. There were celebrations in the streets, music, singing, laughing, dancing, it was a all nations rejoicing in the kingdom of God that is here. The atmosphere was rich with praise.

I saw the church stand up, speak up, reach up in prayer and the Lord has answered, the enemy has been cast down from over our nation. The days of battle have ended and the days of rejoicing in the victory of the Lord are beginning. The joy will be unspeakable, the laughter will be audible, and the righteousness will be noticeable. Oh my friends, we are in a Psalm 5 moment, “Let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them, That those who love Your name may exult in You. For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O LORD, You surround him with favor as with a shield.” The kingdom of God is here!!!

The gospel of salvation is a message of the cross which invites sinners into the gate of salvation. This message is heard on the radio through songs that are sung, on stickers that declare God loves you, from pulpits all around the world. It is truly the greatest love story we have ever been told. This story of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for the salvation of my soul radically changed my life 34 years ago and is still changing my life today. The message of the cross is not a one sided message though, it is a message of what Jesus did for me, but it is also a message about how I am called to live for Him.

When only one side of a story is told, we do not get the whole picture, we do not experience all the benefits, we do not understand the why behind the what. The story of the cross has been told over and over again about all that Jesus did for us, but He did not do all that for us so we can just sit and reap all the benefits of His death, burial and resurrection. He did it so we could do something in return for Him. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 5 what our responsibility is, Paul actually gives the whole picture of the cross. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”

Jesus died for all, so that they (we) who live might no longer live for ourselves. The work on the cross that Jesus did is so that we will no longer live for ourselves. This message of the cross is not preached much at all, so we wonder why the power of the gospel does not manifest in our lives, it is highly possible, because we never stopped living for ourselves. Jesus modeled what it looks like to live for Yahweh even unto death, it was a model He set so we would live the same way. You can’t do what Jesus did if you don’t want to live how Jesus lived. The message of the cross is about living for someone other than yourself. Oh the liberty of living for another. Oh the freedom of living for God. Oh that we would hear and obey the message of the cross as a Church!

If you could take out one aspect of the enemy which one would you take out? Many would say they would take out the hand of the enemy; others would say they would take out the feet of the enemy; still others would want to take off the head of the enemy, like David did to Goliath. Before my prayer time this morning, I would have said one of the above three things as well, but God, who is all knowing, taught the psalmist in Psalm 3, to pray, “Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God! For You have smitten all my enemies on the cheek; You have shattered the teeth of the wicked.” Take out the enemies cheek and teeth? On first glance that doesn’t sound very powerful, but in true God fashion, He invites us to look again.

For God to smite the cheek of the enemy is not to slap him across the face, it is actually to break his jaw. Then for God to shatter the teeth of the enemy sounds like it makes him toothless, and many believers would say the enemy is a toothless lion, but it is so much more powerful than that. When the psalmist asked God to smite the cheek and shatter the teeth, the psalmist understood the greatest weapon of the enemy is his mouth. Selah! The weapon of the enemy used against us the most, is not his hand, not his foot, not his head, but his mouth. His voice utters lies, destruction, division, torment, you name it, the number one issue we deal with is the voice of the enemy. Everyone of us battles the voice of the enemy.

Therefore, to pray God smite the cheek of the enemy is to break the jaw of the enemy so he cannot open his mouth, and to shatter the teeth of the enemy is so the enemy cannot release sounds or cannot consume us with his mouth. Oh my friends, this is a powerful prayer not just for ourselves personally, but for our nation. We need God to arise and smite the cheek of the enemy in our families, media, businesses; shatter the teeth of the enemy in our schools, churches, government. God has a strategic strike against His enemy who is our enemy and it is to smite the cheek and shatter the teeth.

Church culture is set by the narrative of the pulpits that gain influence over a nation. Hillsong Music set church culture worship in America even though they were located in Australia. Church culture shifts and turns more often than we realize, we very rarely know when it starts, but we see its affects on sermons, songs and the speech of Christians. A church culture theme has been identity, which is why it is not surprising to me that we have an identity crisis in American culture. If believers knew their identity, we could take authority over the identity crisis facing people in America. Notice how God sent the solution about identity even before the major push of the identity issue in America became a problem.

Jonathan Cahn wrote a book called Return of the Gods, this book I believe is the narrative the church needs to understand, for we are in a war with spirits who want to be the gods of our nation. While the “gods” of history have sought access into our current reality, the narrative of the church has been to see God as casual. The Lord spoke to me this morning very clearly and said, we, as believers, need to repent for viewing Jesus the Christ as causal rather than as King. When we have a causal view of Jesus the Christ, we don’t have the authority to be engaged in the war of the gods we are in as a nation. Psalm 2 says, “I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain.” “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.” Jesus the Christ is not to be treated as casual but as King.

We have a nation of believers who are 1 Kings 18 wavering between two opinions, but the LORD would say, if Yahweh is God worship Him, if Baal is god worship him. Silence is an answer. For Elijah fire fell from heaven and proved who was King and it brought the fear of the Lord so Israel would not treat God casually. My friends, we serve a King, we are not to treat Jesus the Christ casually, we are to obey His voice, worship at His feet and stand ready to do His commands. We are long overdue to repent of treating Jesus the Christ as casual and to return to Him being our King. This is how we fight this battle.

In July of 2013 I had an open vision I will never forget. I was wearing gardening gloves and was doing some weeding outside of this huge castle, when all of the sudden the butler opens one of the two huge wooden doors to the castle and says, “Lisa, come in here, the Father wants to see you.” I immediately stood to my feet, brushed off my clothes and took off my garden gloves and followed the butler into the castle. There is much more to this open vision I had, but I will stop here because what is relevant about the vision is that I had a view of myself as a servant, gardening outside of the castle, but the Father was calling me by name and inviting me into the castle to meet with Him. This was revolutionary for me, now almost 10 years ago.

This vision was brought back to my rememberance today as I was reading Hebrews 1, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.” The writer of Hebrews tells us Jesus was given the name Son and that name is a more excellent name than angel. Angel in Greek means messenger. The name Son is more excellent than the name angel or messanger. Think about that for a minute. God is inviting us into sonship and we want to be ministers, messengers, angels.

People love giving themselves titles, they love receiving titles, they get a sense of importance from whatever title they are given, Pastor, Apostle, Prophet, Ambassador, Doctor, Reverend, Bishop, Manager, CEO, Director, and the list goes on and on. But Hebrews 1 tells us we are not called employees who work for God, we are called sons who are family with God. The greatest name you have been given by God is son, you are family, you are invited into the house, to sit at His table, there is no higher honor. Don’t fight for, put your trust in, get your identity from any employee title, no matter how exalted it sounds, feels, pays, for you are family, you and I are sons of God. There is no greater title than to be called a son of God.

Years on earth has a way of revealing patterns that unlock understanding in order to not be moved when situations arise. If you understand something you are less likely to be spooked when it arises. It is no wonder Proverbs highly values pursuing wisdom, knowledge, insight and understanding. Solomon even says there is great reward in these things. What is the reward? It is peace of mind, it is rest, it is being settled in a storm. We do not need to be tossed to and fro, if we know what is happening and we understand it has happened before and will happen again.

I was reading Ecclesiastes 10 this morning and verse 4 jumped off the page at me. Listen to what Solomon says, “If the ruler’s temper rises against you, do not abandon your position, because composure allays great offenses.” We are living in a day when the rulers temper is rising against sound judgement, rising against Christian values, rising against definitions we know to be true, but they say are false. Oh my friends, the ruler’s temper is rising against our Judeo Christian culture and country. This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last, so what are we supposed to do?

Wars, rumors of wars, inflation, confusion, earthquakes, fires, chaos all around. You see it, I see it. The church says, Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming, we are about to be raptured out of here. This to me is abandoning our position, the very thing Solomon tells us not to do. I remember in the late 80’s early 90’s and at Y2K, the world was ending then as well. But friends, the world is not ending, Jesus is not coming, not yet, so we must not abandon our position when the ruler’s temper rises against us. Church we must learn how to settle into our position as salt and light no matter what we see and hear. We cannot abandon our position, we are the light the pierces the darkness, the wisdom that speaks into the foolishness. If you can do nothig else, stand and keep on standing, but do not abandon your position.

Driving home to Nashville on Pentecost Sunday was more enjoyable than I anticipated it would be. I really wanted to be in church somewhere yesterday morning, but that did not mean I did not have church while I drove for 8 hours. Sometimes, we have to sacrifice the traditional for the spontaneous only to find God is in both. With the sunroof open, the worship playing and my hands in the air, we joined a crew of drivers who all were going the same speed in the same direction and the flow of us three cars was seamless for miles and miles.

When I recognized what was happening with the cars I was flowing with, the Lord spoke to me and said, this is what the body of Christ is to be like. Same speed, same direction. Our cars did not know each other, but there was synergy that took place as we chose a speed together and deferred to one another as other cars were going a different pace. It happened all day long with larger and larger groups of cars. In many ways, it felt prophetic on Pentecost Sunday.

I was praying in tongues for much of the drive, and when I got to Wentzville, MO, 30 miles from St. Louis, the Lord spoke to me to cleanse the East Gate of Missouri. I knew the East Gate was in St. Louis and was going to be the Arch, so I was driving along, praying in tongues, cleansing the East Gate and then there was the arch in sight. Immediately the Lord had me release fire angels to stand in the East gate of Missouri, so no unclean thing could come in or go out of that gate. I sensed these fiery angels were with flaming swords protecting the East gate, similar to those placed in front of the tree of life in Genesis 2.

What a Pentecost Sunday it was. I wanted to be at my home church in Nashville, but I was able to have church with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the car, then I attended Dr. Greg Hood’s church in Franklin, TN last night, for I wanted to worship with people on Pentecost and I am so glad I did. His message was fire and worship was powerful, thank you Hannah McDonald. Now it’s Memorial Day and I am thankful for all those who put on a uniform to defend the freedom of this country in which I live. I am so thankful for the angelic military and the human military. Freedom is costly, and I am grateful.