Month: July 2022

The Lord was speaking to me this morning about how our face reflects our heart. Have you ever really looked at your face? Not for blemishes but for your heart? Have you ever looked at pictures of yourself to see how your face represents you to other people? The Lord was sharing with me that our faces reflect what is happening in our hearts when we can’t see or don’t realize what is going on inside of us. We know when we are sad, glad, mad, but most of that is circumstantial, the Lord was talking about the deep places in our heart that we may not even know about. Our face reflects that place. Jeremiah 17:9 (MSG) says, “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be.” Our face helps us see what our heart speaks if we will look closely.

The face is vital in scripture because it says our faces reflect the glory of God, not just any glory, but increasing glory. When Moses spoke with God in Exodus 34 it says his face shined, but as the days passed the glory faded for it was being with God that caused his face to shine. Now we, because of Christ do not have a fading glory but an increasing one, because Christ is in us, the hope of glory. Our faces can shine in an increasing way because of Christ in us. Moses shined because God spoke with him, we shine for the same reason. The voice of God puts a shine on our face that is undeniable. If your face is not shining, spend some time in the word, it is a mirror and you are its reflection. Anxiety, fear, depression, loneliness, discontentment, they cast a shadow on your face that was meant to shine with increasing glory. Let the Lord heal your heart, so you can reflect His glory through your face. Jesus looks good on you, shine my friends, shine!

We need a chiropractic adjustment as the church and believers in the church. We need to the word of God to adjust us for we are truly out of alignment. It is no wonder we don’t feel good, we don’t operate by design. We are so out of alignment with the word of God we are not able to even function by design. We know the Bible says, judgment starts with the house of God, but that word judgment is not condemnation, but rather course correction, it is an adjustment, it is not damnation. It’s way past time we let judgment start with us, so we can be in alignment with God and His word.

Listen to what Jesus says about something as simple as where you sit in a meeting, “And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:7-11).

I have been in many church services and there are people that have “their” seat and if you sit in it, you will wish you didn’t. In the Lutheran church it happened, in the revival church it happened, in the overseas churches I was in it happened. Some churches even put chairs on the platform. I wonder where Jesus would sit if He walked into church? I can promise you this, not on that throne looking chair on the platform or that front row seat with a reserved sign sitting on it. My friends, this is an obvious example of the out of alignment I am talking about, but we can’t change anyone but us, so my word of encouragement to you today is to remain humble, for humility is always the pathway to honor. Take the lower seat, it does not make you less, it makes you positioned for honor. Here comes the chiropractor called Christ right now.

I continually stand amazed at the living word of God. The Bible is living, it speaks in now time, even though it was written in another time. It never loses relevance; it never bends the truth; it applies to every generation; it liberates, celebrates, consecrates and demonstrates that to be a believer in Jesus Christ is to worship, serve and obey a living God. He has a voice and He speaks to us; He has eyes and He sees us; He has a heart and He loves us; He has power and He delivers and heals us. There is truly no one like our God and we are created in His image. It is all beyond my comprehension, but my heart, soul and spirit revel in the reality that He is God and He is alive.

This morning I was reading Luke 13:34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!” What struck me is how often we reject what we don’t understand in order to protect ourselves, not realizing we are rejecting what has come to help us. Cities do it, churches do it, communities do it, nations do it, families do it, couples do it, individuals do it. From one to many, we tend to reject what we don’t understand and Jerusalem, the city that literally saw Jesus walk the earth did it. Why?

They did it for the same reasons we do it, because it takes humility to accept what you don’t understand and humility is vulnerability and it takes trust. Trust is hard when you have been hurt. Self-sufficiency, self-reliance, self-promotion, is all because we don’t trust God or others are for us and will help us, so we do it ourselves, thinking it won’t get done any other way. To ask for help or to recognize help when it arrives, takes humility especially if you don’t comprehend who shows up to help. So we resist what we are to receive and receive what we are to reject. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! I wonder how many of us are Jerusalem?

Luke 13:35 says, “Behold, your house is left to you desolate.” Desolate means devoid of inhabitants; deserted. Barren; lifeless. Feeling, showing, causing, or expressing sadness or loneliness (Free Dictionary). Many people are living desolate lives, but the way to come out of desolation and into habitation is to receive not reject the help God is sending to you. We can’t do life alone; we can’t fix ourselves; we can’t look out for number one and live in community. It’s time to humble ourselves and allow the Lord to bring help to us in the form of people. There is life in community, but you must lay down your individuality to be apart of a community. We need you and you need us. Let the guard down, open your heart again, humble yourself and let some people love you. Love from community will remove the desolation of your house and you will live again, dance again, laugh again. It’s time, for the kingdom is at hand, but you must repent of rejecting people, resisting people and start receiving people and reaching out to people, for more are for you than are against you. Let’s do this, we need each other, you are welcome here in the kingdom of God!!!

The anointing, is a word many in charismatic leadership circles talk about. They speak of being anointed to heal the sick, anointed to preach, anointed to rule and reign. All biblical truths they are speaking, but it can seem as though the anointing is to set people apart, raise them above everyone else as somehow “special”. Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, never lived a life that displayed He was better than someone else, had been given something others don’t have, He even went as far to say, if you want to be great you are to be the servant of all; and the son of man did not come to be serve, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus walked with people, talked with people, ate with people. He did not sit in reserved seating in the synagogue; He did not have head of the table seating He expected; He did not have someone carrying His bag. He was the Anointed One and He got down and washed His disciples feet; He reached out and touched a coffin so a mother could have her son back alive; He calmed the storm when His friends in the boat were fearful. Jesus was what being biblically anointed looks like.

Psalm 45:6-7 says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy above Your fellows.”

The anointing everyone of us needs, that Jesus had but is very rarely identified as valuable is the truth that He was anointed with the oil of joy. This is what our generation needs to be anointed with. There is a lot of sad, angry, bitter, unforgiving, depressed, lonely, anxious people around, who need to be anointed with the oil of joy. But to receive this anointing, you must be one who loves righteousness and hates wickedness. This is the scepter everyone in the kingdom must walk and live under. We cannot tolerate, coddle, cozy up to, or think it is okay just a little bit, when it comes to wickedness. We must love righteousness and hate wickedness. We can’t control what others love and hate, but we can control what we love and hate . People say how joyful I am, well its because I am anointed with the oil of joy because I love righteousness and hate wickedness and I would love for more people to be filled with this oil of joy, but you have to chose what you love and what you hate in order to receive it. You can be anointed with joy!

I woke up at 3:30am and 6:30am this morning hearing the word UNLOCK. It was loud in my spirit, and the first time it came with two names, one was Beni Johnson and the other was someone I know. When I woke up the second time, there was no names attached to it, just the word UNLOCK and so I began to pray for Beni and the other other person to be unlocked. But knew this was for more than just those two people. As I have leaned into this word in prayer the Lord led me to define it. Here is what I learned…

Unlock = to undo by turning a key or corresponding part; to give access; to open; to free from restraint or restrictions; to set free; release; to provide a key to disclose or reveal; to release or let loose. (Free Dictionary)

What a powerful word with many ways to approach it. I believer the Lord is unlocking our nation, unlocking us individually and corporately, unlocking communities. I see the Lord unlocking healing, unlocking families, unlocking finances. There is a great unlocking taking place. Since Pentecost this year, we have seen many unlockings, and I see many more coming on the national scene. The verse the Lord led me to look up is Luke 4:18 “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.” Can you see those who are about to be unlocked? I can too.

God has turned a key, the Lord has given access; He is freeing us from restraint and restrictions; the Lord is setting us free. The unlocking has begun and it will continue until our bodies, minds, souls, nations, are unlocked, my friends, the Lord is decreeing over us…UNLOCK!

I woke up this morning hearing the words, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” This is Proverbs 13:12 and I actually wrote about this exact verse earlier this week. But waking up with it this morning, the Lord was highlighting it again, and then as I opened to the Psalm I was slated to pray today, the same idea of hope came into purview, so wanted to share some thoughts the Lord is putting together around this idea of hope deferred.

Psalm 42:5 says, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”

The Lord said, hope in an outcome; hope in a timeframe; hope in a promise; are the fruits of hope in God, but they are not hope in God. Hope in God is putting hope in the One who we call God. It is trusting in His heart; His character; everything about Him. Hope in God keeps the heart from getting sick even when what we are looking for, hoping for, tarries. Hope is a powerful tool, but it must be anchored in God not an outcome to keep our heart healthy.

Many people go out of their way to make sure they eat heart healthy food, but how many of us are making sure we guard our heart from getting sick from misplaced hope? We need to put our hope in God, not in an outcome, a desire, a dream, an idea or a situation. Hope is a powerful tool God has given us to keep our heart healthy, but it is our responsibility to make sure our hope is in God, for God will never disappoint us. Remember, He is not a man that He should lie (Numbers 23:19), if He said it, it is going to happen. Put your hope in God, those heart muscles are stronger than we realize, even when stretched by delay.

When the level of intelligence is beyond the level of the teaching being received, boredom leads to behavioral issues in the students. Instead of raising the level of teaching, we label the intelligent in order to dumb them down. When the Bible tells us we have been given power to do exploits, but there is a lack of power in the room we call church on Sunday morning or Wednesday night, people get bored and begin to exhibit behaviors not fitting for believers. Instead of the leaders being challenged to go deeper with God, we critize the congregation for their behaviors.

In Luke 9:1-2 it says, “And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.” Jesus started by calling people together, we as the church gather well. Jesus them gave them power and authority, the church in some places does this well, but most places prefer powerless people for they are easier to lead. But what very few ministries do well is send people out to proclaim the kingdom and perform miracles. They tell you can do it, but that is different than sending them out, giving them a place to go do it.

The kingdom age in which we are in is going to gather people together, give them power and authority, welcome people of power and authority, celebrate people of power and authority and it is going to know of places to send people out to, in order to preach the kingdom of God and perform miracles. Those places will include businesses, courtrooms, stadiums, conferences, grocery stores, and houses. The church building is not the only place to be sent out to. Then when they come back with a report of what happened, the whole church will rejoice in what God is doing in our city, in our community, in our family. There is no time to be bored in the kingdom of God, for there is room for everyone to operate by design.

If you haven’t heard the word of the Lord, but you see the evidence of changes nationally, corporately or individually how do you respond? Many people don’t hear the word of the Lord for the nation, so when changes take place, they don’t think it was God. The initial reaction to something is usually something that gives credit to the enemy, because most people have not heard the word of the Lord for the nation.

I was reading 1 Chronicles 12:23 “Now these are the numbers of the divisions equipped for war, who came to David at Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to the word of the LORD.” And I got the sense the Lord is going to do somethings nationally that most of us have no clue what the word of the Lord is on the issue, but we are going to see the evidence of what God said, even though we did not hear it ourselves. Because of this, we need to guard our hearts against assuming we know what God has said and is doing. God was giving the nation to David, even though Saul was in power, God initiated this, it was not a power grab by David.

Luke 8:18 says, “Take care to how you listen; for whoever has to him more shall be given.” This is in the context of the four soils, so our hearts determine how we listen. We are about to hear somethings and guarding your heart, so you are careful how you listen will be necessary. National changes, international changes, church changes, family changes, people changes, all are slated to go public, but we must not assume it is the enemy, just because we have not heard the word of the Lord. God is doing major things on earth right now and our job is to be careful how we hear, not assume we know more than we really do. It’s a great day to be alive!

The Word of God is a book in which the culture in which it was written was one of honor and shame. If we do not understand honor and shame, not psychological shame, but rather shame as disgraceful or disrespectful, we will miss the jewels that are to be unearthed in the word of God. I have been talking to a friend of mine about honor this week and the power of honor. We have been seeing how a lack of honor actually causes issues in the church, family and community. But we have also realized, honor starts with our hearts and how we treat others. So, we have agreed to be women of honor, even when we are not treated with honor.

Then today as I am reading Luke 7, I read about a Roman Centurion and how he honored a Jewish rabbi (Jesus), but what the Lord spoke to me is about the result of honor. Here is what Luke 7 says, “Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” The Roman Centurion honored Jesus and his authority as a Jewish rabbi, so did not consider himself worthy to have Him in his house. That was an act of honor, the highest honor, recognizing who Jesus was, not as Messiah, but as a Jewish rabbi. Powerful.

The result of this level of honor for Jesus as a Jewish rabbi brought healing to the Centurions slave. The Holy Spirit said to me, “Honor has the power to heal.” As I thought about this, I began to wonder if the reason we do not see more healing in our services is because there is such a lack of honor among our members? When men don’t honor women, women don’t honor men, we don’t honor our leaders or our leaders don’t honor us, if youth don’t honor adults or adults don’t honor youth, if children don’t honor parents or parents don’t honor children, and yet want God to come and heal us, send revival to us, bless us financially. I wonder if we started honoring each other and honoring the Lord, if we would find that healing breaks out.

I believe there is an untapped power in honor. Honor is an issue of the heart that manifests in our attitude toward one another. Honor thinks more highly of others than it does of themselves. Honor, I believe is where we are going to see healing, for if we honor the Lord and honor each other, the presence of God is going to do miracles in our midst. In the West, we must learn how to honor, it is a biblical principle and very valuable in the kingdom of God.

Prophetic warnings are not to scare you, but to prepare you for what is coming. Prophetic warnings are not to get you to hoard, prep or stock up as though what is needed is something physical. A prophetic warning is to prepare your spirit, your mind, for what is coming. Prophetic warnings were given in the Old Testament to get people to repent of a sin they as a nation were involved in, for Israel it was literally idol worship. Prophetic warnings given by Jesus were to explain why you may feel a shaking and how to strengthen your foundation. Here is what Jesus said in Luke 6:46-49…

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

A storm is coming, the wind is picking up, the sirens will increase in sound, and the rain has already begun to fall but it is going to increase. It is not a storm to fear, but if you find yourself shaking, it may be because you have not answered the question Jesus asked, why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I say? We reveal His lordship in our life by our obedience. Our obedience is what builds His house inside of us. My friends, a storm is coming, it may shake you, but it is not to punish you, it is to reveal foundations of nations. The best way to prepare for a storm is to obey the voice and word of God. #hopeuchost90