The Power Of Life Is In The Tongue

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  Yesterday's battle was brutal and brought some deep wounds to my heart.  The mystery of my God creates so many questions in my mind.  But the one that always seems to crop up is simply, "why?"

Why does this happen and that not happen?  Why does evil seem to gain a foothold and claim the day?   The rocks on my road have been many and sharp lately and my feet are feeling the pain.  My agony comes not from my personal suffering but from all that I see my loved ones and others going through.

As one who confers with Holiness, in my human attempts to find God's will for myself and others, today is no exception.  The Holy One calls me earlier than usual.  I am thankful to know the fitful night is over and He is here in the darkness with me.

I understand the strategy of evil is to tempt me to question my Heavenly Father's goodness and wisdom.  I refuse the enemy's lies and surrender my heart to understand the events of yesterday from my Lord's perspective.

He takes me to HIS Word and reminds me of MY words.  Proverbs 18:21 (NIV) says, "The tongue has the power of life and death".  Proverbs 13:3 (NIV) says, "He who guards his lips guards his life."

The lessons from the Holy One never cease and His wisdom continues to flow if only I will sit myself down to listen.  Wringing my hands is never an option better than folding them and so I pray.

Today my "why?" question seems to find an answer.  I ask, "Why, did the situation turn away from the righteous end I was praying to find?"  The Holy One tells me to "Check the declarations made in fear and anger!"

Just as in the days of Job's trial, I see human culpability, and a Divine Principle of Holiness therein.    Back in the day, Job said,  "What I feared has come upon me, what I dreaded has happened to me".  (Job 3:25 NIV)  Evil brought to Job what he feared and what he dreaded, and then came the test.  

The spoken word carries great power in life.  If we fail to recognize the power of God's spoken word in creation and understand how it applies to those of us created in His image, we can miss out on so much of our personal authority to create good situations in our lives and avert the evil that seeks to devour us.

The Holy One has been teaching me this principle as to the power of my words spoken, not in fear, but in positive declaration, of what I desire to see come to pass in my life.  There have come wonderful manifestations of the truth of this principle as I learn to discipline my tongue and speak no evil.

"Evil " speech includes agreeing with all the threats of harm that I may see, feel or even hear in my ears coming against me from the dark forces around me in the unseen realm.  We are given to speaking negative words and then blame God for the outcome.  

Declaring what I fear, as if it is impossible to change, empowers the enemy to deliver exactly what I have feared and then spoken.  Conversely, and with reverence for God His Word, and that great principle at work, I realize that my heart desires, declared out loud, come to pass as well.  

Usually what I fear is the opposite of what God promises in His Word to me.  Reality on the ground becomes what we have declared and if it's not Heaven's best since every good and perfect gift comes from there, then evil is having it's way.

The Holy One gives me the truthful sequence of events and our human accountability in what actually takes place. Fear represents an alternative agenda than the one faith represents. What I speak out loud: what or with whom I voice my agreement, it is those words that begin to dictate my reality.

Most believe that the sequence of doom begins at the circumstantial situations we find around us, rather than the articulated fears within the heart.  As I agree in despair with what might happen or even what I see beginning to set up, then darkness descends to overpower the Light.

We are cautioned, warned and exhorted to guard our tongue.  We are to think upon what is good, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy (Phil 4:8 NIV)  If we think right thoughts, we can express right words and we will see good things in the land of the living.  Then we are enabled to confirm God's Word as true.

In the sweet sovereignty of our Creator, as we are all on a learning curve, God can, will and does deliver us from those dank prisons of our doomish declarations, but not before He makes His point.  

I am so thankful today to understand the "why",  even as I see this lesson in the negative.  I purpose to co-operate with my Lord and guard what passes over my lips acknowledging the truth that the power of life IS in the tongue.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?





      

Fear: Temptation That Is Not Sin***

The Holy One calls to me this morning. As I open my eyes to a new day, I can sense that "fear" is about to speak and Holiness is watching like a coach to see how I will handle the next few minutes on the clock. Anxiety is a vexing sensation that can plague the most reasonable person with all there is to fear in this chaotic world. 

I have been taught that fear and faith cannot co-habitate so the next little while may, in fact, determine where I will spend my day or even longer in fellowship depending on how I respond to the threat.

My coach speaks into the fear charged atmosphere and I hear his calming voice say, "fear is only a temptation, not part of who you are".

At that moment, the Holy One lifts me up and out of the grip of that evil one trying to impact my mind.  I know the fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace and I call out for Him to flood my mind with it now.

My Lord is faithful, and I can feel the warmth of his presence as my flare prayer is answered.  But what is the much more to be gleaned and applied from the lesson today?

The Holy One takes me back to His word and all the times He says, "do not fear", "fear not", "be anxious for nothing".

Of all the sins we might fall victim to, fear is one that offers no satisfaction to our flesh.  There is simply no "perk" to fear and so I wonder why I am so tempted to go with it.  The Holy One begins to explain: "Threats of harm are part of the human experience".    

A little fish in a big  pond can make for a harrowing existence for the little fish, but in reality, my Heavenly Father owns the pond and has arranged for and sustains  my life within it.

As I wait upon the Lord for more input, I am guided by my Counselor within to Proverbs 29:25, "Fear of man will prove to be a snare.  But whoever trusts in the Lord will be kept safe".

Then the light goes on.  I see how fear of anything apart from the "fear" of the Lord is a snare. Fear sets up the trap for my flesh to react in "sin".  Fear of man and what man can do to me in any given situation creates the setting for the sin in me to take center stage.

I am beginning to "get" what the Holy One is showing me.  Fear of failure can cause me to seek ungodly ways to succeed.  Fear of poverty can cause me to seek ungodly ways to make money and thereby make money an idol.  Fear of rejection can cause me to seek ungodly ways to be accepted.  Fear of losing control can cause me to seek ungodly ways of asserting control.  And to the big one mentioned, "fear of man" and ultimately fear of harm can cause me to seek ungodly ways to self-protect leading me to anger, bitterness, rage and even murder.

The examples keep rolling through my mind that confirm the truth I have just been given.  I have always seen fear as the sin rather than understanding that fear is the temptation and sin is the action that follows.

Fear is a snare that can lead me to unbelief, and to question God's Sovereign authority.  I see how fear is a game the enemy has always played with my mind.  But today, I have come to realize that I do not have to keep playing fear's game.   I can avoid the trap that fear sets up for my flesh.

Fear, like any other temptation in life, involves a choice and decision on the part of my free will: to yield to it or reject it.  Temptation to fear is not sin in and of itself, but rather a snare that tempts me to take the sin bait therein.

The enemy will not tell you that you have a choice, but the Holy One does.  Following His lead and His wisdom, I know I can and must choose to reject the enemy's fear and bypass the snare that it is.

"Whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe."

I have come to know that spoken words are a powerful and creative force in the atmosphere of life.  I have begun to grasp and apply the principle behind God's word that says, "The power of life and death is in the tongue".  So I make my verbal declarations into the unseen realm where things that touch my life and circumstances  originate, not in fear, but in faith that God will rescue.

I declare that God's Word is true and I am safe!  His great peace now reigns in my mind.

I sense that there is a big smile on the face of my Counselor today and I can feel it on my face as well. 

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him? 

God's Wonderful End of Job's Trial***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  Today is Sunday.  The day to celebrate rest and to worship the Lord.

The battle rages and the trials continue, yet in the midst we are permitted and actually commanded to rest and worship.  As I lay the trials down for a  while, Holiness reminds me of a man named Job.

For those who know God's Word, much is revealed in the book of Job.  We are given a glimpse into the unseen world beginning with Job 1:6.  God's created beings called angels, came to present themselves to their Creator and Lord.

One such celestial being is called by the name, Satan.  He turns out to be man's arch enemy and the one who brought all the grief into Job's life.

The rest of the book that bears his name, is the story of Job's season of trials.  We are privy to the disasters Satan brought to him, the counsel he received from his friends and the ultimate connection he made with the Sovereign God of all Creation.

If we take God out of the equation, we can certainly become fearful in the epic contest between good and evil, light and dark.  Our trials can become hopeless and resign us to bitter defeat by the unseen forces that we cannot control.

While Job's trial are intense to read about and his sufferings almost unbearable, there is much to learn and apply in this ancient account of the man and his encounter with God.

In the historic time period of Job's life and trials, he lived before the Savior was sent into the world, and before the Holy Spirit took up residency in the being of men.

We now live in an informed era, where the Son of Holiness, Jesus the Christ, has come and left us with a legacy of hope that Job was not aware of before His trials.

The Holy One has a point to make to me today, so I am all ears.

He speaks to the trials we are all facing on earth today.  We all have a taste of what Job went through.  Some have physical infirmities, some have financial losses, some have relational heartaches and some are struggling with separation of the hardest sort through death of a loved one. 

All have some and some have all of these trials hitting their life today and The Holy One directs me to read the end of Job's story.

While we can all so relate to Job's life as the days of our suffering seem endless, if we skip to the end of Job's story we will see purpose and in purpose we will see hope.  If we can see that Job was being persecuted for his righteousness before God and tested in his loyalty toward his Benefactor, we can gain a better grasp of our own trials.

Job was a man just living out a relationship with his Creator to the best of his ability and understanding at the time.  Satan, the accuser brought a charge against Job that required he be tested so that God, as well as Job could be vindicated. 

Who would dare speak evil of the Maker?  Only the one who wants to rule in His place.  Only a being with free will not unlike our own.

As we progress through our trials and suffering does it ever occur to us that evil is the voice that challenges our loyalty to our Lord?  Do we stop to realize that our love response to our Lord and God is tested as the trials hit our lives?  Can we allow our reaction to the heat we feel in our lives to become a vindication of God's great love and wisdom in His creation of mankind rather than an inferno of self pity?

The enemy made his accusation about the man:  The only reason Job was loyal to God was because his life was protected , blessed and easy on earth.  Hidden therein is a patronizing suggestion that man, created in God's glorious image would betray him when suffering was permitted;  that man, just like Satan himself, would rebel and thus prove the worthlessness of God's Beloved.  While the rebel angel was tested and failed through power and privileged authority, Job was tested through sorrow and suffering on earth. 

In the free will all of us were given at birth to choose relationship with our Maker, there must come some heartburn that tests our loyalty to the One who created us to live eternally with Himself.

I am thankful to have Job's testimony of courage to stand in the heat of adversity.  I am blessed to see the source of our trials and the ultimate reason for them.  I am relieved to read the end of Job's story and how once the Divine purpose was accomplished in the testing of his faith, he was restored in the earth realm, and reconciled through repentance in his relationship with God.

Job's trial ended with a greater understanding of the mystery of the Lord's Sovereignty.  He is quoted as saying, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You, therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:5

The hope we can glean from the life of Job is that after he suffered, "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first".  Job 42:12

We can gain the same comfort from I Peter 5:10, "And the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  To Him be the power forever and ever.  Amen".

In an odd kind of way, the trial of Job also tested Satan's power of influence.  Could Job be convinced to betray the One he knew to be God? Some have buckled over the course of history to join the ranks of the rebel forces and we can read about their fate as well as Job's.  Judas failed the test as did King Saul.

Into each of our lives will come the day of reckoning when circumstances present difficulty and groaning and but also great opportunity.  Our loyalty to our Lord will be tested, of that we can be sure.  When that day comes will we stand firm and trust that our God is ultimately good? 

Job's story is not unlike our own.  Into a swirling saga of hard circumstances, faithless (but well-meaning) friends and oppressive evil, God spoke to Job about Himself.

And when God spoke, Job listened.

Job's end was a bountiful restoration of his earthly life, but even more important than that, Job's end was a personal encounter with the Sovereign and Majestic God of all creation.

As I look at Job's life, I may recoil at his suffering, but when I read of the end, I can rejoice for what it teaches me about my God. 

Today I find that rest is possible and even in the day of trial, worship of the Holy One is my delight for He is worthy.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?      
    

   

  

Sacrifice Goes With The Mission

The Holy Once calls to me this morning.  Yesterday was Veteran's Day and the nation took the time to honor our military veterans for the sacrifices they have made and are still making today.

The Holy Spirit brings to my mind the words of Jesus in Matt 24:6, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it you are not alarmed such things must happen but the end is still to come.  Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains."

This is just a statement of what's happening today and the conditions we face on the ground and in the environment around planet earth.  The battle field is in the natural and in the Spirit realm as well.  There are natural famines and Spiritual ones.  There are natural earthquakes and Spiritual ones.There are natural wars and Spiritual ones.

These things are said to be like "birth pains".  Having birthed 4 of my 6 children, I understand "birth pains".  Having 3 adopted grandchildren, I can look upon the struggle and sacrifice in adoption to see that bringing forth new life, is laborious and hard work in the process.

The Holy One captivates my thoughts and He speaks to my meandering mind.  "The sacrifice that goes with the mission is part of the mission.  It cannot be avoided but will someday be understood".  My wise Counselor knows my unspoken thoughts as I think about those things that I see we suffer and yet do not understand why.

We are all suffering the high price of the calling by God on our lives.  In fact, it seems that, if we are not "suffering in the sacrifice", something is off in our service to our King.

There is not one mission given by our Lord that doesn't involve sacrifice. Whether it be one of inconvenience or some other more desperate form of death to comfort and ease in life, sacrifice is a reality in the Lord's commissioning of His people.

In my times of trials, I see how I have sometimes missed that memo and have not always understood the sacrifice that was required or why.  Self-pity can surely breakdown an otherwise potentially outrageous testimony of God working out the impossible things in our lives.  Testimonies are made in the furnace of adversity.

The Lord exhorts us to "count the cost" of following Him and being His servant and representative to a lost and dying world.  We read that in His word but then leap right over it without truly understanding the days we will spend in the dungeons of persecution, the times we will slosh through the mud pit of being misunderstood, or the hours we will spend away from all the glitz and glamor of a party with our friend that is unacceptable to our calling.

In this world, many will suffer through unprovoked divorce, family divisions, church splits, physical torture or abuse in different forms.  Some  will feel the arrows of the evil one in their bank accounts, their health or be made to endure losses to their dignity or assassinations to their godly character.

Some of the sacrifices we can see for what they are.  But what about the ones that's seem so pointless and having to be made for no discernible reason?  The Holy One speaks to my heart about "those"sacrifices today. 

In a perfect Christian world the good guys are supposed to win and come through every battle without a scratch.  But that is not my reality and the wounds can be deep.  Today I am thankful that my Counselor is ever present and a comfort as I nurse some of those wounds.

His words lift me up.  Somehow, as we wait for the promised resolutions to our struggles and continue on in the mission we have been called to execute in service to our King, there is great relief in knowing that the sacrifices we are required to make are not in vain.

I can find the peace to "keep on keeping on" knowing  that "the sacrifices cannot be avoided but will  someday be understood".

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him? 

   
   




 



 

The Legacy of Miracles

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  It has been a very busy week in my earthly life.  I haven't been able to settle down and retreat into my "Sacred Romance" for a few days.

Life is surely fast paced and unless I make a deliberate decision to sit at My Lord's feet, I can get into the fast moving current of life and be carried downstream without even realizing it. 

When life is hard, desperation takes me naturally into my place of retreat, looking for resolutions that can only come from my Beloved.  But when the answers come and the pressures lift, and celebration  is in the camp,  we can forget to honor the One who supplies all the victories.

Today I am called by the Holy One to fellowship with Him in the celebration of a wonderful miraculous victory in life.  

The Children of Israel were told to build altars of remembrance and worship to the One who carried them out of Egypt so we can and must do the same.  Today I am building an altar of Worship and I praise Jesus for what He has brought forth and completed in my family nation today.

As I come in worship and thanksgiving, my Lord reminds me that there are still lots of things that He hasn't yet tied up in a bow. There are still issues of life that need the touch of the Master's Hand. There is always going to be a human need that requires the Divine Hand of the Sovereign God to touch and heal. But when victories come, we must stop and celebrate His miraculous interventions for these are His "Glory" moments. 

We are hard wired for dependency on our Creator.  We may fight for our own independence and try to prove our capability to handle life on our own, but in the end we simply cannot live this life
victoriously without the one who arranges for our next breath.

Today He wants me to celebrate the "legacy of miracles" He has given each one of us to live.

I have been given the privileged place of seeing His miraculous interventions in my life journey, since I was 18 years young.  Before I knew much about life or the One who rescued me for all eternity, He was very busy revealing Himself through circumstances that might have otherwise been disastrous. 

As I face the rigors and trials of life on planet earth, I am in awe of how many times He has lifted me out of fearsome, "death defying" situations.  The things that seem impossible to me are flawlessly execute by The One who has called Me to just watch Him work.  Human nerves may become frayed, but  His peace is available while He brings things under his Divine control.

Just as the Nation of Israel was brought out of Egypt, I have experienced the "Red Sea" parting over and over again.  I believe each and every generation needs that form of miraculous intervention and each individual needs to have a Red Sea parting experience in their lives to truly get to know the One who died for them personally.

Jesus came to show us God the Father.  Through God the Son, Jesus,  He touched lives and executed miracles on the earth. Jesus came to give this world, not only the personal experiences of miraculous intervention, but also to give His followers a legacy whereby we are to become conduits of His powerful and miraculous intervention on earth.

In John 14:11, Jesus says, "Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or at least believe in the evidence of the miracles themselves,  I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in My Name, so that the Son may bring Glory to the Father".

I confess to my Savior that I want my kids and the next generation to experience the miracles like the ones I have experienced, that have made Him a complete "reality" to me.  The Holy One speaks a sobering truth, "If you want them to see miracles they have to be put at risk, is that what you want?" 

I surely see His point and looking back over my life and the legacy of miracles I have lived, I see that each one had the element of potential disaster or impossibility in the natural associated with it.  Each had the drama and need of rescue.  Each had a desperate desire for the impossible that human ingenuity and control could not deliver.

While my journey with Jesus has not been just one crisis after another, my pathway has been marked with mountains leveled and valleys raised up by the power of My Lord. I know that as we journey with Jesus, we live on the razor's edge of "risk vs rescue", and that is where the "legacy of miracles" unfolds.

It is in the danger zones of living that we take possession of our inheritance of the miraculous.  Life with Jesus is no ordinary existence and I see that it takes faith and courage to accept and live the "legacy of miracles".  Risk for ourselves and others will happen.  The question is, "are we brave enough to venture there?" 

In answer to His question, I say, "yes, yes,yes".   Let us all be put at risk if that is the way to know Him better.  If that is the only way to experience our "Legacy of Miracles", the pain is surely worth the gain.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?