Category: Uncategorized

Sudden Shalom

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

What is your default reaction when something arises? Everyone of us has a default setting we go to. When we are tired it is really obvious what the default is, if we are willing to look at ourself and not blame someone else. External situations and circumstances rise all the time. External situations come and go to reveal to us what our default go to setting is. For some it is worry; for others it is anger; still for others it is something to medicate them (food, drugs, alcohol, pornography). We do whatever it takes to get out of the external situation that just disrupted our internal world. We all do it.

If we are willing to listen to ourselves, watch ourselves and truly pay attention to ourselves, this is the first step in being discerning, discerning ourself, not someone else. I always smile when someone tells me they are discerning, because I want to ask, are you self-aware? Do you have self-control? Do you hear what you say more than what anyone else says? This is what we are called to do, discern ourselves or as Jesus said, “Take the plank out of our own eye so we can see the speck in our brothers eye.”

The reason I bring this up today is because I found myself praying out of anxiety this morning. Nothing happened, no one said anything, it was just a spirit that wafted into the room and tried to attach to my soul and cause me to panic pray about something that is actually nothing. I felt the anxiety, I could hear it in the sound of my voice. Then I opened to Psalm 35 my prayer partner this morning and the Lord calmed the storm immediately. “Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me; Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield And rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.” My issue was a spirit not a person and when I prayed “Say to my soul, I Am your salvation”, swoosh, peace came rushing in like a river and all anxiety flushed out in an instant.

We cannot control what comes into the room, whether a physical person or a spirit, but whatever alters our peace is an enemy and we must say to our soul, “I AM is my salvation!” David encouraged himself in the Lord, this is how we do that, we tell our soul “I Am is your salvation!” Peace was restored in a suddenly second and tears fell from my eyes as I leaned into the arms of the One who has been saving my soul for years now. He is Savior every moment of every day, say to your soul, “I Am is your salvation!”

Joy Is Manifesting

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

It is not coming, it is here! There is a move of God happening in our midst of the likes we have not heard or seen before. It is not a weeping revival; it is not a you and Jesus only revolution; it is not an evangelistic crusade; it is not a wave your hands and people fall down situation; no this is a move of proximity to God and people. He is not coming, He is here. It is not on the horizon, it is upon us. Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you feel it? The change has happened. The manifestation of the new is here and oh my my my it is filled with joy, celebration and liberation.

We sang a song yesterday in church called Give Me Jesus. The bridge says, “I don’t want anyone else, I don’t need anyone else, You are my one thing, You are my one thing.” I was struggling to sing that line, because I do need other people, I do need other things. As the Lord and I were discussing this song, He said, “If you have Me, you get all those other things.” I knew He was saying remember Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” I leaned over to my friend Lauren, who was standing next to me at church and I said, “When we get Jesus we get all the other people and things as well. He just has to be priority one.” She smiled a huge smile and we both shouted, “Give me Jesus! Give me Jesus! You can have all this world, you can have all this world.”

Psalm 34 says, “Join me, everyone! Let’s praise the Lord together. Let’s make him famous! Let’s make his name glorious to all.” My friends, this is a corporate-body move. This is about proximity to God and to people. This is not a me and Jesus move, this is an us and Jesus move of God and it is coming with joy unspeakable. We were not meant to do life alone, we were meant to do life together. One final thing happened at church yesterday, for the first time, we literally had a conga line happening all around the building as joy broke out in the house. It was kids and parents, friends and families, it was old and young, it was a whole string of people singing, dancing, waving their scarfs, it was joy unspeakable. This has not happened before but I am sure it will happen again for this proximity revolution is here with joy, praise and healing and it has already begun to manifest.

Success Pillars

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

People are in pursuit of the key to success. The myriad of books written on how to be successful will make your head spin. Success is such a value in every culture, yet it alludes so many people. Instead of success many a people deal with shame, loss, anger, hurt, and other maladies of which there are many names and symptoms. We were born with a desire to be great, to be successful, to make our lives count for something. The fire to pursue a dream, a goal, a career, is inside of us, but the training, the truth on how to obtain what we want to gain alludes us.

Solomon is said to have been the wisest man who lived, his proverbs speak to us today, and the truth he exudes is undeniable. Proverbs 3:3-4 says “Hold on to loyal love and don’t let go, and be faithful to all that you’ve been taught. Let your life be shaped by integrity, with truth written upon your heart. That’s how you will find favor and understanding with both God and men— you will gain the reputation of living life well.” Can you hear it, can you see it, this is the key to success. Love, faithfulness, integrity and truth. The four pillars that make you successful with both God and man.

We are given a simple understanding of how to be successful, but because these four pillars are not four numbers for a lottery ticket that will give us something for doing nothing, we discount what God says are the four pillars of success. From Genesis to Revelation, love is the first ingredient in everything. Paul even said, if you have not love you are nothing. Love is a life laid down for others, it is a selfless life, but love is not a priority ingredient in many people’s lives then they wonder why they are not successful. Faithful can also be stated as consistent. To be successful you must be consistent. Integrity is a building term, something that is structurally sound is said to have integrity. Oh how we as people need to be inside strong if we are going to be successful. Finally, truth. Truth is foundational to any success.

There you have it, so simple yet so hard for so many. If you want to be successful, these are the four ingredients, the four pillars that will give you favor with God and man. God wants you to successful that is why He put a desire for greatness inside of you, but you much develop the four pillars of success inside of you, if you are going to fulfill the desire you can’t deny. It is so simple and yet so hard, unless you have love for God and love for people.

Clean Slate Club

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

Growing up in the Midwest we heard often at mealtime it was important that we “cleaned our plate” for there were people who had nothing to eat. When I think back to those days I realize there was no connection between me finishing my vegetables and someone who had no food to eat. What were we going to do send my uneaten broccoli to another country? 🙂 I still smile with a chuckle as I think about this. I was a member of the “clean plate club” not because I liked brocolli but because it was a value in my home that we eat all we put on our plate.

I was praying Psalm 32 this morning and the Lord said, “I have a clean slate club and you are a member!” I love how the Passion Translation says it, “What bliss belongs to those who have confessed their corruption to God! For he wipes their slates clean and removes hypocrisy from their hearts. Before I confessed my sins, I kept it all inside; my dishonesty devastated my inner life, causing my life to be filled with frustration, irrepressible anguish, and misery.” You and I, when we confess our sins are members of the clean slate club. Now this is a club I want to be and remain a member of.

A friend of mine and I have been digging into some new areas of life together. In doing so what I have discovered is when you let someone else into your shame, your history, your ornaments on the back of your tree that you think no one can see, it eradicates the lies that are lingering in the shadows. It sheds light on what was dark; it removes shame from what felt so daunting; it truly brings bliss in a way only authenticity and integrity can. The Lord has been showing me how individualism and isolation have been like termites hindering us from the abundant life found when intimacy and community connect.

Friends we are members of the “clean slate club” our sins are forgiven by God and when we share our stuff with others it takes the residue out of the shadows and it is swept away when someone else knows what we wanted no one else to know. Then intimacy becomes accountability not to avoid sin, but to live the abundant life together. The freedom is palatable, the laughter is audible and the coconut milk ice cream is delightful. Intimacy and community is the proximity that is enjoyed in the “clean slate club!”

It’s Time To Feast

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

Famine is giving way to feasting at such a fast pace we don’t have time to analyze it, we are being invited to embrace it and let it wrap itself around us like a heated blanket on a cold and rainy morning. Famines in the word of God were seasonal not eternal. The longer the famine the harder it was to transition into the feasting. Yahweh set up a cycle of feasts that His people would attend throughout different times of the year to remind them famines are seasonal and feasts are continual. The three main feasts of God are Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, but there are other feasts they celebrated as well.

Every nation has a cycle of feasts that break the famines in our nations. For America we have Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know there are many more but those are the big four. In Malaysia they have many feasts because they had three main religions in the country. We had Merdeka Day, Chinese New Year, Deepavali. It was a time of feasting and it broke any famine off of the people. Feasting and famine are experiences we all have had. The famine or lean times are not fun but they are endurable, they are educational if you can hear what the famine is saying.

Feasting is the norm in the kingdom culture. When we live in submission, in obedience to, in honor of the God who is abundance we find ourselves in a feast everyday for His word and His presence never run out. Psalm 31:8 says “You have kept me from being conquered by my enemy; you broke open the way to bring me to freedom, into a beautiful, broad place.” (TPT) As I prayed this the Lord glanced at me and said, “This is what I do! This is who I Am!” Friends, we have been pressed but not conquered by the enemy; we have been given a way to freedom and now we are entering into beautiful broad places. Grab His hand, He has so much He wants to show us and so many places He wants to take us. The feast is upon us!!!!

A December To Remember

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

I am not one to say “I feel” very often, I feel things very deeply, I am a passionate person, but to use the words, “I feel” is not something you will hear from me very often. This morning I was praying Psalm 30 and it says, “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.” When I read that, I started to feel something in the spirit realm. “December is going to be a month to remember”. I can feel it.

Now I realize many people are in the “Christmas spirit”, but I do not enjoy Christmas songs, I do not like singing Christmas carols, I change the channel on the radio frequently now because most stations are belting out songs that I do not enjoy, so I am not in the “Christmas spirit”. I do love egg nog; Christmas lights; opening and giving gifts and my mom’s cranberry bread, so I am not a Scrooge, I just do not get into the “Christmas spirit”. All that to say, I honestly feel in the heart of God like this is going to be a “December to remember”.

We have endured through the night, not always well, not always with the right words, attitudes or even actions, but we made it. We are here right now today and I hear the spirit of God saying, “This will be a December to remember!” I am not sure what that means, I do not have any insight into what is going to happen, but I can feel it, I can sense it, I have an anticipation about something really good manifesting this month. I cannot say anymore, but the “feeling” has me giddy. If you see me smiling more than normal, it is because this is going to be a “December to remember” and I am like I was so many years ago on Christmas morning, wide awake, early in the morning with an anticipation and great expectation.

Psalm 30:5 “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.” GOOD MORNING MY FRIENDS!!!!!

Voices

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

Your voice, your words will go places your body may never go. Your words and your voice lives inside of people you do not even know. Books, blogs, coffee talks, long walks, we release words into other people and they carry them into other conversations and to varying destinations. Words are powerful, words are penetrating, words are healing, words are stealing. Words, words, words. We echo what others say because their words are inside of us. We reveal who we listen to by the words that come out of us. We hear words other people say, but some stick and alter our way. Words, oh the power of words.

Praying Psalm 29 today and the theme is the voice of God. Everyone can hear the voice of God. We may not give God credit for what we hear, we may not even realize it is God we are hearing, but His voice is speaking to us all the time. Did you know Yahweh is the only God worshipped on earth who speaks to His people. Buddha does not speak, Mohammad does not speak, Baal does not speak. Only Yahweh, the living God; Yeshua the Messiah who is God; only the Holy Spirit who is God; speaks and His people can hear His voice. Psalm 29:4 “The voice of the LORD is powerful; The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.”

People are running to this voice by the millions; people are running away from this voice by the millions; but they all hear this voice. When we speak the words of God it becomes an echo inside of others who don’t realize they are hearing the voice of God. When we release prophecy from God it activates hope; ignites passion; and waters weary souls. Oh the voice of God is powerful. When we submit to and honor the voice of God it releases blessings money can’t buy, but when we resist the voice of God we enter into troubles we cannot deny.

Many of us are detoxing the voice of people in our life who were or are valuable to us, but have not spoken life into us. As we detox their voice, we will hear more clearly the voice of God, which is a voice of life, a voice of truth, a voice of authority, a voice of freedom. Jesus is no longer on earth but His voice is still speaking to us even today. That relationship is no longer active, but their voice is still effecting you today. Detox the voices of death and embrace the voices of life. There are more for you than against you, can you hear their voices?

Wild Horses

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to hear the truth? It does not matter our age, our gender, our socio-economic status, our title, our color, people struggle to hear the truth. Not just some people, all people. We do not like the messanger the truth is coming through; we find a reason why their life is worst or no better than ours, so we do not hear the truth they are speaking. What is our aversion to the truth? What is it in us that so easily defends our current reality when someone comes and shares some truth we cannot see in ourselves? We were created to know the truth, to love the truth and to walk in the truth so we can speak the truth, but the one thing we reject more than anything else is the truth.

People will even argue with this post saying this is not true. 🙂 John 8:31-32 “Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, when you continue to embrace all that I teach, you prove that you are my true followers. For if you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom into your lives.” (TPT) Our freedom is directly tied to the measure of truth we embrace not who is the President, Prime Minister or King of our country. We have a responsibility to be lovers of the truth. When we love the truth we will receive it whoever it comes through, wherever it comes from and we will adjust our lives to the truth, if we love the truth.

When I first got saved in January 1989, the Holy Spirit spoke two things to me, He said, I love you (John 3:16) and I will never lie to you (Numbers 23:19). Those two pillars have kept me all these years walking, learning, growing, trusting God and never changing my mind about Him. Circustances have not always changed to support the promises I have been given, but I know God loves me and God will never lie to me, so I love God and I love the truth. This is why I am always smiling, searching, listening, praying, loving. I love God and I love the truth.

I have noticed people who struggle, who are crabby, who are mean, who are angry, who are just hard to be around, they do not love truth and so they are bound not free; Critical not joyful; lonely not in community; the answer to be set free is to love the truth because whatever you are believing is not working as you can see. Other people tell us the truth all the time, in subtle and obvious ways; not always packaged well, but it is still the truth and our spouse tells us the truth more often than we can hear. My prayer is that we would not enter the New Year with some physical or financial resolution, but with a resolve to become a lover of the truth, for truth is the only thing that sets us and keeps us free.

Era of Proximity

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

November 20-30, 2023 was going to be a dream fulfilled as I was given a trip to Israel by my parents. They said, we sense it is time for you to go to Israel and we want to send you. The trip was booked back in the Spring with a runway of many months for my heart to marinate on the idea of walking on the land I read about everyday. I remember telling a friend about this trip and she declared, this trip will be a demarcation in your life that changes everything for you. I knew it was going to be true. When I got the email late October that due to the war in Israel it was not safe for us to go, so the trip was cancelled my heart sank. I knew it was the right decision, but I was really wanting to go on this trip. November 20th arrived, knowing I was supposed to be flying to Israel that day and again my heart was saddened by the reality I was not going. This week was going to to be a demarcation in my life. I was so excited to go, so the disappointment was real.

Little did I know, God was going to change something in my life not in Israel but in my heart. It was a demarcation week of the likes I did not see coming. Those words my friend Marcella Mitchell spoke over me in her kitchen about the trip to Israel are happening, just not in the place I thought it would. The Lord has walked me through a door, not to a nation I long to visit, but through a door in the spirit that is revealing things to me about the power of proximity in a way I have never seen or heard before. We have lived such distant lives from God and from each other, because pain, wounds, hurts, tells us to isolate from each other, but God says it is in community that we heal with one another.

Intimacy in community is the power of proximity that is going to be the mark of this era. The most vulnerable and powerful thing you can say to someone else is I need you in my life. We have experienced so much distance for so many years, but God is walking us through the door of proximity and intimacy for our healing. Isolation and distance does not work, we have tried it, now proximity and intimacy is being released to us and it is going to be the demarcation that changes our lives forever. Welcome to the era of proximity.

Proximity Revolution

Published on by lisagreatenebeliLeave a comment

We have been in a slow demolition of the doctrines of men that have created distance between God and people and people and people. This slow demolotion has been going on for years, but enough of the faulty, antiquated structure we have found so much “false sense of security” in, is giving way….finally. It is like a veil that has been placed over our eyes so we cannot see the truth that will set not just some free, but all of us free to see.

What God Himself is walking us into is beyond anything we have ever experienced. We were born into a system of religion that has baptized us in methods, opinions of man, clever pithy sayings and ideas, promises that never came true and beliefs that are not biblical. The whitewash is being removed, the reality of falsity is being revealed and it is going to bring a culture shock to the nations of the likes we cannot even understand.

When Israel left Egypt after 430 years, they had only known Egyptian culture. When its all you know, it seems right, until you are brought into another culture of which you have no frame of reference. This is the reality we are about to face. A culture we did not know was available, a truth we did not realize we had not seen or heard. It is going to be an international revolution of the God kind. The echo is going to become a fading sound and the kingdom is going to manifest and march on.

The mark of this revolution will not be war, famine, disease, affliction, persecution or the rapture, it is going to be a revolution of proximity to God and to people. We are being led into a PROXIMITY REVOLUTION. Proximity to each other and to God is going to unlock the power that Jesus walked in. We will see miracles, signs and wonders not from a distance, but up close and personal. The closer we get to each other and to God the more kingdom activity we will see. This proximity revolution will draw people into community in a way we have never seen before. It will not be a program or a method, it will be organic, unique and creative for there will be no two of the same communities. What God is doing is a PROXIMITY REVOLUTION that will alter the culture of nations. Proximity is power!!!!