Tag: Love

Hunger Pains

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You know that feeling when you are hungry, I mean really hungry. It is as though you could chew through the walls just to eat something. Most people do not fast, let alone miss a meal, but there are people who are so busy they forget to eat. Hunger is a force that drives us to get what we need which in many cases is food. There is an internal mechanism that says, I am hungry inside of us and we answer its call by going into a drive through, throwing something into the microwave or preheating the oven for. Our natural hunger for food is satisfied with putting something in our mouth. Most of us do not need anyone else to satisfy our hunger for food, so we just eat when we are hungry.

There is another hunger in us that needs other people and God to satisfy. People are manifesting their hunger, but most people do not see or can not hear the cry of a hungry person. It is not because we are deaf to their cry, it is because they are not speaking it out, they are acting it out. I was with some friends yesterday shopping and while walking around the mall I could see the hunger for attention coming from people. They were not hungry for physical food, they were hungry for attention. Hungry for people to enjoy what they enjoy, hear what they were saying, take an interest in what interested them. The hunger for attention was obvious to me and all they wanted was some focused attention.

When people are hungry for love, attention, time, touch, whatever it may be they act differently that they are designed to because they are hungry. Think about when you are physically hungry how your attitude changes, your energy wanes, your thoughts wander. The same is true for people who are hungry for time, touch, talk, attention, they act not according to design, but from a place of being hungry. When they are fed they smile big smiles, laugh, play, enjoy life, respect people and obey instructions. It is amazing to me how many times we have used behavior modification techniques when people were just trying to tell us they are hungry and we had the food they needed.

Church may we be the people who are connected to abundance so when we are doing life with hungry people we are not distracted by behavior but feed the hungry soul. They may need attention, time, physical touch or someone that enjoys them. It is amazing how something so simple can take a hungry person and fill them up in a way nothing else can. As we tap into the unlimited resources of God’s love we become distributors of that love to others who are hungry in ways they can not communicate but desperately want us to see.

Era of Proximity

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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.

Survey Says

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One thing I enjoy is watching game shows, because I spend so much of my day studying, counseling, praying and serving other people in so many ways, when I sit down to relax I do not want to think. Gameshows therefore, are my go to for relaxation and winding down after a great day. I was watching Family Feud last night, Steve Harvey is so funny, I just love that he is hosting this show, and one of the questions was, what is missing in most people’s lives? The number one answer was love.

When I heard this number one answer to a a survey of 100 people, I was amazed but not surprised that this was their top answer. We cannot love people and be selfish. Cultural independence has created a vacuum of love, for everyone is looking out for themselves, are concerned about themselves, are worried about themselves, so they operate from a deficit rather than abundance. This is one of the main reasons people are lacking love. You can’t genuinely love someone else when you are always thinking about, worried about, focused on yourself.

Love is others focused. Love thinks about others. Love engages authentically with others. Love does not have “me” in mind when in the presence of another. I have a new friend, he has special needs and he can’t communicate what he needs or wants very clearly, but he sure does respond well to love. Love that sees him, hears him and wants to know him. Love that knows he cannot give anything in return other than a look in his eyes that says, “You see me!” Love sees him and he knows it.

The apostle Paul said, “If we have not love, we are nothing” (1 Corinthians 13). We may pray the strongholds down; we may cast the demons out; we may preach the roof off the house; we may have more money than we know what to do with; we may drive a nice car; we may own a big house; we may sell a great product; but if we have not love, we are nothing.

Love is not weak, passive, quiet, soft, mushy, love is strong, steady, selfless. Love is not about me, love is about what others need in that moment. Love is authentic, passionate, observant. Love sees what is in its hand or heart and gives it freely. To some it may not be much, but to the receiver who can feel the love being given, it is life-changing and love has many expressions. We must never go beyond love or we missed the whole point of what we need and what we are called to give.

Do We Understand What Jesus Said?

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Julie Green is a voice that speaks what she calls “prophetic words” daily about happenings that she says are coming to our nation. This morning, her YouTube video popped up on my page and it read “A Trap Is Set”. This statement caught my attention because I was praying Psalm 35 this morning and I was praying these words with the psalmist, “Let their way be dark and slippery, With the angel of the LORD pursuing them. For without cause they hid their net for me; Without cause they dug a pit for my soul. Let destruction come upon him unawares, And let the net which he hid catch himself; Into that very destruction let him fall.” I was praying these words for our nation, that whatever traps may be set against us would be the very traps those who set them fall into.

After praying, then seeing what Julie had as her title for the day, I began to realize, most Christians do not pray with this type of language, because we have misunderstood the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:43-44 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The church has been told to love their enemies, therefore, to declare our enemies fall into their own trap seems unloving to many believers, so the enemy runs rampant in our nation and we wonder why. Church we are the gatekeepers of this nation! Our misunderstanding of Jesus’ words has allowed the enemy right in the front door of our nation.

Jesus sat at a table and had a final Passover meal with His disciples, where He called out His enemy, Judas. in front of everyone. Was that loving? Yes it was, why? Because 1 Corinthians 13 says, love always protects. Jesus’ love protected Judas from the fate about to befall him and it protected His other disciples from falling for the same trap. Jesus said love your enemies because He knew we cannot have both love and hate inside of us without hate corrupting our love for people. If we have any mixture in us, we cannot reign and rule with Him as sons, for we may, like the sons of thunder, want to call fire down one minute and lean on his chest the next. We must have pure love, but that does not mean we don’t know who the enemy is and call him out as such. And we definitely don’t let the enemy in the front door of our house, church or nation.

Access Denied

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Love does not mean access! This is what the Lord said to me as I was reading Ezra this morning. He said, “You can love your enemies without giving them access to you and what you are building.” Enemies appear helpful in order to gain access, but once access is denied we will see they are an enemy and not an ally. Enemies can masquerade as polite, helpful, or even beneficial for a moment, but tell them no and you will see they are still an enemy.

Now listen to Ezra 4:1-3 “Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the LORD God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.” But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, “You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the LORD God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.”

The church hears the word enemy and immediately hears the words of Jesus, “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28) Then we argue in our heads with the words, “Love does not mean access.” Jesus was speaking in the context of the beatitudes in Luke, the parallel passages are in Matthew 5. The kingdom of God does not hate its enemies, like the world hates those who do not agree with them, align with them or do what they say. The kingdom of God can say no to their enemies when it comes to access but still love them. This is hard for a humanistic culture, because we equate love with access, but 1 Corinthians 13 says, “Love protects!” When you love someone you protect them from the enemy that comes to steal, kill and destroy them (John 10:10). This is why love does not mean access.

Love is Kryptonite to the Enemy

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Love is Kryptonite to the Enemy

 

 

Have you ever had a frustration conversation with the Lord? You know one of those prayer times where somethings off, you feel stuck, heaven seems silent on an issue? I had one of those talks with the Lord just the other day. During this, let’s be honest, one sided conversation, I was doing all the talking, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Follow the yellow brick road”. Now for religious people that will be hard to believe God would say that, but to relationship people, they totally get it. God said, “Follow the yellow brick road.” I had just bought the movie the Wizard of Oz, as someone I met is doing a prophetic project in Kansas and asked me to watch it. I grabbed my pen and paper and sat down to watch the Wizard of Oz like I would a sermon. What I didn’t know was how prophetic that movie would be for me.

“Jesus called a little child to stand among them. “Truly I tell you, He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3-4). As I watched this movie the Lord began to speak to me from go. First of all, Dorothy was living with her aunt and uncle, so she was either orphaned or some other situation happened to her parents. Next, she had a dream, which is what put her into the land of Oz and she knew she had gone over the rainbow. Upon arrival in her house, which was the vehicle that took her to the land of Oz, she landed on the wicked witch of the East and killed her. With instructions from the leader of the munchkins, she took the ruby red slippers off of the wicked witch of the East and put them on her feet and was told these slippers would protect her, so just follow the yellow brick road. (There are so many prophetic things right here for you to consider).

The story goes on and she meets three men on her following of the yellow brick road, a scarecrow who needs intelligence, a tin man who needs a heart and a lion who needs courage. As each joins her on following the yellow brick road, to Emerald City to meet the Oz, she encounters along the way the wicked witch of the West. The truth that hit me like a tidal wave was, that because she was wearing the ruby red slippers, the wicked witch of the West could not lay a hand on her. When the Lord highlighted this to me, I remembered that in scripture rubies mean passionate love. The Lord spoke to me and said, “Lisa, passionate lovers are kryptonite to the enemy, because he has no love in him”.

Immediately, I began to weep, as I knew that love is the answer to victory in our lives as believers. When we are lovers, the enemy cannot touch us, love is kryptonite to the enemy. No wonder Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). Our love for God and for one another is what keeps the enemy at bay, for if we are lovers of God and lovers of people, he has nothing in us to work with. No wonder the enemy had nothing in Jesus (John 14:30), Jesus was a lover of His Father and of us as people. This is powerful to me, for I knew love was the answer, but I did not realize how powerful it actually was.

As the movie came to an end, they arrived at the door of the Emerald City and finally met the Oz, who did not grant their requests as presented for a brain, heart, courage and a home, but he gave them more than they asked for. Not only did love keep the enemy at bay, love kept them on the yellow brick road that led them to the place where they were given more than they could have asked or even imagined (Ephesians 3:20). When we are wearing the ruby red slippers of passionate love for God and for people, the enemy cannot touch us, for love is kryptonite to the enemy.

What is Love?

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February is traditionally the month where love seems to be the topic of discussion. With Valentine’s day coming on the 14th, many are thinking about who they love, who they used to love and who they want to love. So, I decided to ask the question, what is love? Many would point to 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter” or John 3:16, the “love verse”, but still the question remains, what is love? Is love a noun or is it a verb? I believe the answer is yes! Love is a noun and love is a verb, but one thing love is not, is unconditional. Unconditional means not subject to any conditions according to dictionary.com. So, what is love?
 
Love is a noun and a verb! 1 John 4:7-9 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.…” Love is a noun, because God is love! Love is a verb, because God sent His one and only Son into the world. If love was unconditional, if God could just declare He is love and never show that love, is it really love? The answer is NO! Love cannot be love unless it has a corresponding action of love.
 
One reason people like the idea of love being unconditional, is because they have bought into the lie that something is free. Nothing is free, freedom is not free, just ask the veteran or Jesus who died on the cross for your sins, so you could be free. Your freedom cost Him His life. It may seem like its free or unconditional to you, but someone, somewhere paid a price for everything you believe is free or unconditional. If love was unconditional, why did Jesus have to be obedient unto to death, even death on a cross? (Philippians 2); if love is unconditional, why were there two trees in the garden?
 
I have come to realize that we like staying children in our faith and in our lives because then we think we can continue to receive something for nothing. Look at all the things we believe are free, salvation, grace, love, just to name a few. Salvation is a covenant and ask any married person, covenants are not free, they are very costly; grace is empowerment, not a free for all, just ask the apostle Paul (Romans 6 & 7); and love is not free as we noted above. If we are going to grow up, we must realize that responsibility and requirements are not striving or living under the Law, but rather they come with maturity and a biblical understanding of what love really is.
 
Whether we realize it or not, we have been immersed in a spirit of lawlessness, which is why we want everything for free and when boundaries are set for safety reasons, some will reject them. Love is God and love has requirements. God required Himself to provide a sacrifice for our sins when He loved us enough to give us a free will. Our government loves us, that is why there are speed limits and traffic lights. Love is not lawlessness, love is having requirements. If love was unconditional then there would be no reason to believe in Jesus Christ as the One and only way to the Father (John 14:6).
 
When I was a youth pastor, I would tell the parents of my students, L-O-V-E are the boundaries that you set so your student feels safe. There is a difference between rules and boundaries, but that is another blog. So, what is love? Love is freedom, love is truth, love is grace, love is power, love is life, love is what will grow us up, but one thing love is not is free. You must choose to love, so if it costs you nothing else in your mind, it costs you your will. For Jesus said, If you love Me, you will keep my commandments! (John 14:15)
What the world needs is love, what I need is love, what you need is love, and when we understand love, then we will never go back to something masquerading as love. If it has no cost, it has no value. This is love, God is love!

Symphonic Sound

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1 Corinthians 13:1-4 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

The kingdom of God is arising in a way that is creating distinction and separation. Distinction for the sound of the kingdom is love and the sound of the kingdom is service. Separation because those who are not of biblical love, which is actually service to others, is being not separated from the community, but separated from the distinct sound. The bible says, that if you have not love, you sound like a clanging symbol. As the sound of the kingdom, which is love, continues to increase, the lack of love is evidenced in the sound you produce.

In years, past, you could get away with being selfish in a service, whether in church or the community; in the past your selfishness was common, it was a choir of clashing symbols, so no one really noticed that you did not have love, for they did not have love either. But it is a new day, and there is a new way. No wonder Jesus said that new wine needs a new wineskin, for you must be a lover to release the sound of love. You cannot fake love in an atmosphere of love. The kingdom of God on earth, is an atmosphere of love, of service to one another, of 1 Corinthians 13 manifested.

While in a church service, I heard this separation of sounds, this new distinction that is upon us. Being in a service where there is liberty to be the community, means some can prophesy, others can speak, and many have to learn to follow the lead of the one who went before them in order to transition the service well. But when someone does not have love, they are selfish, they want to say their own thing, they want to have their own way, they do not want to join the symphony of sound that is being created in that service, by the Spirit, then they sound like a clanging cymbal or clashing brass. It is no wonder they do not have cymbals in the symphony, they are truly out of place.

The kingdom of God is like a symphony, with one conductor, Jesus, and many instruments, that have different sounds, but work in connection with the other pieces of the orchestra to create a symphonic sound that is pleasant to the ears of the hearers. If you have not love, in what is here and coming in greater influence, you truly will sound like a clanging cymbal. In order to operate like the kingdom of God on earth, we need love, we need to listen to one another and to the Spirit of God, so we can join the song that is being played in that situation. Selfishness, which is you saying what you want, spouting your agenda, passion or personal preference has no room in a symphonic service.

Our conductor, Jesus, will call for different instruments at different times, for He knows the song structure and style. For us to be a success in the kingdom, we must listen to one another, we must be willing to not be heard, we must follow the flow of the sound that is being created in that symphonic service.

What Are You Tapping?

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Before I became a Christian, I used to go to parties at people’s houses. At those parties, you would pay for a cup, and then with that cup you could drink whatever beverage they had bought. But, to do this it required you going to the tap, which produces the beverage you were seeking to consume. Depending on the number of “tappers” the host had, would depend on the number of kegs that were tapped at a time. So, you would see kegs without a tap and know either that keg was empty or it was yet to be tapped. No matter how many kegs the host purchased, eventually, the beverage would run out, for those kegs, even though they were tapped, were temporary, there was an end to what was inside of them.

I share that experience because I was listening to a podcast on the way home from the gym today and the preacher, who is well known, very passionate and has a large church, was speaking on being planted in somewhere bigger than you are, so you can grow the greatness inside of you. He said, that small places grow small people, that is why many, despite their titles in small churches, left the small church, to come and sit in his church, because they knew they needed to be planted in something bigger in order to grow. His passion, makes you want to shout AMEN, but the spirit of God spoke to me and revealed that anything we tap other than God Himself is temporary and will eventually run out.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

God has planted eternity in our hearts, so anything you tap that is not God Himself is an idol and it will eventually run dry. Remember when you bought that new car, you were satisfied temporarily; remember when you got that new job with that big salary, then over time you began to want something more; do you recall when you got married, why over time did you long for a deeper love, more passion, something more in that relationship, that the other person was not capable of providing for you? The reason is because God has set eternity in our hearts, He has created us with an insatiable desire for more. Some may call it greed, but I call it eternity and I have learned that no matter the size of the church, no matter the amount of money you make, no matter how big the house is, or how amazing the marriage may be, there is something in our hearts that is eternal and only God can meet that need.

We tap so many temporary things and then wonder why we struggle, fight and compete with each other. James 4:1-3 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” You are tapping the temporal and it’s not satisfying!

God has created you to be an eternal being, but to tap into your identity, your design, your image, you must tap into the God of heaven and earth, the Lord of all creation, the Master of everything. Your battle is not with other people, it is with yourself and God. The Israelites rejected the invitation to tap into God Himself and instead chose someone temporal, Moses to tap into, which eventually led them into tapping into another temporal thing, the golden calf. We do the exact same thing, we tap into people, thinking they have what we are looking for, we tap into stuff, thinking it will satisfy our longing, we tap into a company or church, thinking that is the answer to my eternal itch. But the truth is, the only One who satisfies, the only Person who is lacking nothing, the only thing that can quench the insatiable need inside of you for more is God, Yahweh, Yeshua, because He alone is eternal. Until you tap into God, you will always be tapping something temporal and you will live a life of want, lack, or deficit.

The question I want to ask you, honestly, what are you tapping? If it’s something temporal, it will run out, but if you tap into God, He is eternal and to Him and His kingdom, there is no end, that is where I am tapping into and I am still hungry for more, but there is no end, so I can stay hungry, because I tapped Who I was made in the image of and so can you. When you tap into the temporary, it is like sugar, it will give you a spike of satisfaction, but it won’t be long until you are seeking something new to tap, but if you tap into the Lord, it is like tapping into the eternal in which there is no end.

Tongues of Fire

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Everything that has come down, was put within us, now what we are waiting for, is it to come out of us.

Jesus instructed His disciples to wait in Jerusalem, until they were endued with fire, Acts 1:8 says it this way, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, AND you shall be my witnesses…” What came down was the Holy Spirit, in the form of tongues of fire, those tongues of fire are in our mouth, they are not coming down again. Jesus said in John 16:7, “”But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” Just as the dove came down and rested on Jesus at His baptism in Matthew 3:16, the same Holy Spirit came and rested upon people in the upper room in Acts 2, but in the form of tongues of fire.

Many people are looking up, waiting for something to come down. We pray out of Matthew 6, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as though it is something outside of us. We are looking up for God to send something down, but the Lord is looking down, waiting for something to come out…of us. I wonder if the reason we are not seeing a breakthrough, is not because something has not come down, but rather because something has not come out. In the past season we would sing, Holy Spirit Rain Down, but I believe the song of this season is Spirit Break Out, break our walls down. Christ in you, Christ in me, is the hope of glory! He must come out of us.

While I was in worship on Sunday night at Bethel Church in Redding, CA, the spirit of God spoke to me and said, “You have been given tongues of fire, your words light up the nations!” The Lord has given us tongues of fire and in the midst of darkness our words of life bring light and truth to build up the nations not tear them down. The very next thing I saw was choirs of nations, singing, Great Are You Lord, it was a picture of whole nations lifting up their voices in one song to the Lord. I was calling to the various nations, to join in the song of the Lord.

Isaiah 60:1-3 says, “Arise, shine, for your light has broken through!

The Eternal One’s brilliance has dawned upon you.

2 See truly; look carefully—darkness blankets the earth;

people all over are cloaked in darkness.

But God will rise and shine on you;

the Eternal’s bright glory will shine on you, a light for all to see.

3 Nations north and south, peoples east and west, will be drawn to your light,

will find purpose and direction by your light.

In the radiance of your rising, you will enlighten the leaders of nations. (the Voice translation)

I believe now more than ever before, we have a mandate from heaven to let our tongues of fire out, so the nations can sing Great Are You Lord. As we speak life, we light up people’s lives, we light up nations with hope, peace and joy, we bring healing through the fire of our words of life. We have been given tongues of fire, in the past many have used their tongues to burn up what they deemed wrong, but today, we are being commissioned to use our tongues of fire to light up the nations with the light of the life that comes out of our mouths. You have tongues of fire, light up the nations!