Lisa Great

I am sitting at my desk this morning, birds singing outside, gentle breeze blowing through the open window on this beautiful spring morning in March and the Holy Spirit whispers to me the words “Setting free!” With these words wafting through my spirit, I immediately see a jeweler “Setting a stone” in a ring. The imagery was obvious, the connection between setting free and setting a stone was stunning. The Holy Spirit then said, “I am setting people free to set them as a precious stone in a setting prepared for them.”

Proverbs 25:11 is the verse that lept in my spirit as this imagery was lingering in my spirit. “Like apples of gold in settings of silver Is a word spoken in right circumstances.” Setting in Hebrew is Maskith and it means: showpiece, imagination, apprearance, phenomenon. The Lord is setting us free for us to appear as His showpiece for all to see. He is pulling people out of the mud; He is chiseling others out of hard places; He is digging through the ashes to set His precious ones free. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, His people are pearls of great value to Him and as He sets them free He is setting them up as showpieces for His glory.

The setting type, according to jewelers, refers to the metal base that holds a gemstone or diamond in place. Each setting style is created to enhance both the beauty of the stone and the brilliance of the jewelry piece. The prong setting is bent over the stone for maximum exposure to light from top to bottom. It ensures that the stone gets set at the right height, is completely straight, centered and secure. For very large stones that require extra security and support a double prong setting is used. (Diamondere dot com)

Friends, we are the stones that have been set free and God is setting us in place to be a showpiece for His glory. You are a precious stone of the Lord!

Have you ever drove with someone who is directionally challenged? When you know the way to go, it is hard to remain quiet, when someone you are with is going the wrong direction. In our culture of tolerance that has made us easily offended, we are afraid to share with people, that they are looking or going the wrong direction. There is a joke with spouses that a “man” won’t stop and ask for directions. Is it true, for some yes, for others no. But it is a stereotype in my culture. Thank God for technology, for phones, for Waze and Google Maps. Remember when we used to have an atlas in the backseat with all the roads we were to take? I wonder if that is where the phrase back seat driver came from? Anyway, just some fun memories about driving and needing direction.

I was praying Psalm 133 this morning and the Holy Spirit highlighted to me that the preachers have made people directionally challenged. Now preachers can be books we have read, movies we have seen, or sermons we have heard. The church is directionally challenged and we don’t want to stop and ask for directions, though in many ways we are lost. We have been told, taught, we are getting raptured out of here, that the darkness is getting darker and we keep looking up in order to leave this world that is so corrupt. But the Bible is very clear we are not going anywhere, rather God is sending something down to help us.

Psalm 133 says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, Coming down upon the beard, Even Aaron’s beard, Coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon Coming down upon the mountains of Zion; For there the LORD commanded the blessing—life forever.”

Friends, we are not going up, oil is coming down! God commanded the blessing, life forever, life came down in the form of Jesus Christ. Healing is coming down with the oil. Joy is coming down with the oil. Mercy is coming down with the oil. Strategy is coming down in the oil. It is coming down, we are not going up in a rapture. We need to stop or get out of here thinking and realize help is coming down so we can be a blessing, we can release life, we can distribute finances, we can speak healing. It is all coming down. It is time to stop and ask for directions, for we are not going up, it has and is coming down. Now that is some good news!!!!!

In the military they are taught to walk in unity with one another. They do this with what they call a cadence. A cadence is similar to a metronome, it keeps you in lock step with the rhythm being set by the commander. I heard the Holy Spirit this morning say, “March according to the cadence of your call.” The verse that accompanied this word is found in Ephesians 4:1-3 “I, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

We, as Westerners, tend to hear the word “you” as singular not plural, but biblically, Hebraically, the word “you” is more accurately translated “you all”. It is a we word or a group word. In Ephesians 4:1-3, Paul was not speaking to an individual but rather to a “you all”, the church at Ephesus. The invitation was to walk in a manner worthy of their call as a group of believers in Ephesus. Henceforth, the idea of a military learning to walk in unity. Which brings us back to the word the Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning, “March according to the cadence of your (all’s) call.”

When individualism is your cultural norm, the idea of marching according to the cadence of your all’s call is a foreign idea. However, if we are going to manifest the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, we have to learn to get in cadence of our call together. The “you all” is your family, your community, your city, your nation. The Lord is wanting us to “March according to the cadence of our call!” To do this we must all hear the same cadence; we must all be willing to lay down our lives as individuals to join the sound of the commanders cadence; and we must be willing to make sure we are in lock step with those on our right and on our left. Our fomation is going to be tight and our Commander is going to get glory if only we will march according to the cadence of our call!

I was with my bible study group yesterday morning and we had a discussion about “staying in your lane” and how you do not need to be all things to all people. It was a great discussion about being a specialist in one area, so people look to you in that area versus being a generalist in many areas and carrying little to no authority in any subject. We talked about how when we do this we need each other and what that person brings to the table.

Now this morning I am praying Psalm 131 and the psalmist says, “O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;” The Holy Spirit whispered me to me, “When people stay in their lane their soul quiets down.” Friends, we do not need to be experts in everything. We need to trust the Lord and lean on each other. We all only have 24 hours in a day, you can’t be an expert in everything, but you can be a specialist in something.

I believe God created us with passions to pursue certain things. I have friends who are great mechanics; prolific dancers; amazing story tellers; unbelievable curators; and amazing chefs. I don’t need to be them, but as they share what they are specialized in I can enjoy them and then I can share what I specialize in and they can enjoy me. It removes the competition and quiets their soul and my soul.

When we know who we are, what we bring to the table and who others are and what they bring to the table, there is a synergy of gifting; an enjoyment of diversity; and an dentification of passion; that makes the body of Christ a beautiful picture of unity in the midst of variety. We were made to be a blessing to others, not to try to be someone we are not. May we be a people who celebrate one another not try to be each other. In doing this we will find we trust the Lord, love our neighbor and live with a quiet soul.

Real love cannot be bought, cannot be traded in for any amount of money, and will never sell out, no matter the price presented. It has been said, everyone has a price. But what if that is just not true. What if love, real love, does not have a price, what if it carries a value that money does not even have a voice in?

The Babylonian system is a system of money, mammon, it is a system where everything has a price. If you work you expect to be paid; if someone offers you money for something that is more than what you are doing you are considered a fool if you do not take the pay increase. Babylon is all about money/mammon. In that system all decisions are financial decisions. Can I afford it, will it profit me? In Babylon you do for money what you would never do for love.

The Kingdom of God is a system that operates on love; love for God and love for people. Song of Solomon 8:7 says, “Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it; If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, It would be utterly despised.” In the kingdom of God the idea that you would do anything for money is absurd. Yet, many “believers” still have Babylonian mindsets so they still think people are doing what they are doing for money, not from love. In the kingdom of God love is the currency of this kingdom. Nothing can quench love, for love cannot be bought, love is so abundant you do not even think about financial gain from what you are doing. Yet what you do produces finances from so many different places.

It is no wonder Jesus said in Matthew 6, for where your treasure is there your heart will be also…you cannot serve both God and money. They are two different lovers and you cannot love two opposing things at the same time. Babylon loves money, the kingdom of God loves God and loves people. Henceforth, why we are called to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and ALL these things we desire will be ADDED to us. The question then is, who do you love, not who do you want to love, who do you really love?

I was at Costco with a friend recently and the total of our order was $127.00. Immediately we both knew this was the Lord saying, Psalm 127. We got in the car and read that Psalm and knew it pertained to the business she is starting. We prayed and thanked the Lord for such a clear word. Now today, I am praying Psalm 127 on this 27th day of February and the Lord has me look up the meaning of vanity for the psalmist says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” Vanity means desolating, empty, worthless, idolatry, falsehood, deceptive. The Holy Spirit says to me, “The deception of the dollar” and He begins to reveal to me how the dollar deceives people.

The dollar decieves us because it promises us things it cannot deliver. The dollar says, “Pursue me and I will provide for you.” The dollar promises to make us feel powerful. The dollar tells us the more of them we have the more secure we are. The dollar convinces us we cannot live with out it. And on and on the deceptive message of the dollar speaks. The challenge is, we do exactly what the psalmist says, all for the deception of the dollar. We stay up late, we rise up early, we engage in painful labors both physically, emotionally and spiritually all for the dollar. We have been deceived into believing the dollar is our savior. We may not say that, but we live as though it is. We trust the dollar, we pursue the dollar, we depend on the dollar and it is vanity, it is deceptive, it is worthless.

When I saw this, ever so clearly this morning, I began to break off the spirit of vanity on people I know that have been deceived by the dollar. We are not people of vanity, we are people of the presence of God. But the deception of the dollar has attached itself to so many believers, it is running them ragged in pursuit of it. I took my sword of the spirit and sliced off the spirit of vanity on my friends, my family, myself. It is a spirit, it is not who we are, we have been deceived, but the truth is here to set us free from the spirit of vanity. The psalmist ends by saying, “For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” My friends, rest, relax, read your Bible, pray, God is restoring the years the locust called the deception of the dollar, have eaten away. You will lack nothing for the truth is setting you free to access abundance!

The tsunami of good news flowing from the throne of God is not even digestible at this point, it is truly a time to just play under the waterfall of His good news. We will sort out what it all means at a later time, but for right now, we are just to get soaked in the language of heaven that is shouting, singing, rejoicing and releasing so much good news. His voice is like the sound of many waters and it is roaring good news with every drop.

Psalm 126 says “Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”

Sheaves are something that is bound, that does not sound like a reason to shout joyfully. This does not sound like a reason to shout, but the Lord said, “Israel would shout even when they were bound or still captives, because they knew they were rescued.” What? We wait for the full manifestation before we shout, before we testify. But the Jews would be headed out of captivity and back to Jerusalem and the moment they were headed out, they began to shout. No wonder the psalmist said, “When the LORD brought back the captive ones of Zion, We were like those who dream.”

The Lord said to me this morning, “It is a Lazarus time (John 11); the grave door has been opened and I, the Lord am brining out the bound with a shout of joy!” Remember in John 11 it says Jesus let out a loud cry saying, Lazarus, come forth? That loud cry was a shout of joy and it brought that bound man out. We are looking for a fresh harvest of souls, but God is bringing the bound believers out of their graves and caves. They are bound and He is looking for harvesters that will take off their grave clothes. It’s just like in Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones that became a living army with the shout of joy from the prophet.

Friends, God is doing a harvest of bound believers and there are so so so many, for once they are free, then others will see, hear and know there is a God in the nations and He has set His people free again. Then they will come to us saying, who is your God? It is a Crowder song season, for He truly is the Grave Robber! https://youtu.be/xCi0UGiD7X4

We have been told a third great awakening is coming to the nations. Most of the time this language is tied to past awakenings which were about “revival” happening in churches, people getting saved, our idea of an awakening based on history. Then some have expanded this awakening to include a cultural revolution and language like seven mountain mandate have been brought into the vernacular of the church culture. Much of what we hear about a great awakening is rooted in historic awakenings, not in the mystery of a next awakening. Truly prophetic people can peer into the mystery of the future, they do not prophesy the past.

We are headed into a great awakening, but it is not going to be like any awakening we have experienced or read about before. The great awakening we are headed into is going to be a Song of Solomon (S o S) great awakening. S o S 3:5 and 8:4 say, “Do not arouse or awaken love before it is time.” Well, it is time. It is a time in history when God Himself has decided to awaken love in us. This is not a perverted, selfish, worldly love. This love is pure, unadulterated love. It is a great awakening. We have been seeded with a desire, a need, for love from both God and people. This love has been sleeping inside of us for our whole life, but God is awakening us to this love. It is truly going to be a great awakening.

This love is going to change our identity, for we see ourselves like S o S 1 says, “Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, For the sun has burned me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.” We may not say it, but this is what is deeply rooted in most people. But the great love awakening is going to declare over us, “How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves. How handsome you are, my beloved, And so pleasant!” The Lord Himself, who is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all is saying, “I am awakening you to love, a love you have never known before.” It is time for the great love awakening.

Fear is losing its grip on us and when we finally get set free from fear, we are going to know a freedom that will break the spirit of control that has been put on us, off of us. We will walk in such freedom, we will declare wide open spaces are holy places and we will never go back to living in restricted places called fear. My lungs are expanding with every truth the Lord is revealing and the rhythm of His roar is returning in a way it is hard to describe. The wilderness was hard, it was long, it was a long season of holding our breath. But it lead to promised lands of the likes we did not know were available to us on this side of heaven. Oh friends, there is truly joy in the morning!!!!!

I was telling my women’s bible study yesterday, Jesus Christ is very simple, religion is complicated. The word of God is not hard to understand, but we must cast off all the doctrines of men if we are going to hear the simple truths that set us free. The amazing thing about simplicity is that it is very profound. Church, we are being set free from religion and once we are untangled from all the doctrines of men we are going to dance, sing, shout and rejoice because God is breaking the shackles off our feet!

The obstacle that is hard to overcome on this road to freedom is what I call the law of first mention. Whatever you have been told first tends to be what we believe and unhearing it or changing what we believe about it is very hard, because we have had it ingrained in us so we struggle to stip it off of us in order to be free from it. The word of God is not hard to understand, what people have told us the Bible says is what has us tangled up. God is untangling people from the doctrines of men, simplifying us so we can hear the Word of God and it is releasing a freedom of the likes we have never known before. The revolution is a revelation of Jesus Christ and it is building momentum daily!!!!

Why would you want to stay somewhere you don’t like? Why would you want to be living in a land, in a culture, you don’t enjoy? Why would you curse, destroy and demean somewhere you are currently living, rather than just move somewhere else? If you don’t like where you are living why don’t you move somewhere that you enjoy? Why do we stay in miserable situations and then blame the place rather than remove ourselves from there and find somewhere we do enjoy?

I spent nine years in another country. That country did not conform to my American way of life, my American values, my American attitude. No if I was going to live in that country, peaceably, I had to operate by their cultural norms, their patterns of behavior and their ways of doing life. They did not conform to me I had to conform to them if I was going to live in peace while there. The more I tried to make them like me, the more miserable I became. Once I submitted to their country and their culture, I enjoyed living in that foreign country, for I realized they are not going to change for me, so I must submit to them or leave.

I was praying Psalm 122 this morning and I realized the prayer for Jerusalem is given because you love that city. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: (pray like this) May they prosper who love you. May peace be within your walls, And prosperity within your palaces. May peace be within you.” The call was to pray for the city called Jerusalem, if you don’t love the city, you won’t pray for it to have peace, safety, wealth. If you don’t love your nation you won’t pray for it like this. Church, we must find somewhere we love, live there and pray for it to have peace and prosperity. I love my nation, so I pray for it to have peace and prosperity, I pray you love where you live to.