The Seasons Change, do you?

Arise and Shine for the glory of the Lord has risen among you - Isaiah 60:1

I am in an expanse of time where the seasons are changing.  I can feel the change.  I can sense things are changing.  Depending on the approaching season, is the level of excitement or sadness.  I do not look forward to the winter season one little tiny bit.  I don't like cold.  I don't like being barricaded inside a building with no fresh air or warm breezes for months upon months.  When fall turns into winter, I am not impressed or excited at all.  Winter is death.  It's silence.  It's barrenness.  It's isolation. It's darkness.  It's stale and cold. 

There's such an excitement inside of me when I begin to see the signs of the winter season turning into spring.  I begin to see and hear the birds sing new songs.  I begin to see the hard, frozen ground thaw.  You see garbage and trash under bushes that became temporary freezers hiding away all the wind blown debris.  I even welcome picking up the garbage and throwing it away.  There is such a hope and thrill knowing that my flowers will soon bloom and trees will sprout life buds. 

When spring turns into summer there's not too much of a change.  The days get hotter and the nights cooler.  The sun shines brilliantly and gardens are in full blossom.  Summer is so perfect.  Stormy nights and rainbows and butterflies and hummingbirds are a few of my favorite visitors of summer.  Knowing the ocean is roaring and the sand is hiding away tiny treasures of shells and vivid colors of sea glass is a blissful notion.  Favorite fruits and vegetables are abundant and the smell of tanning lotions and citronella candles tickle my nostrils. 

Although fall is so beautiful displaying amazing colors of harvest, there is also a sadness that comes upon me; knowing that my favorite days will soon be passing.  I love the bountiful blessings that autumn brings, but it's truly bittersweet because I know that darkness, coldness, and death of everything I love is knocking on the door of change. 

Here I am in a season of change.  I believe I'm in a season of springtime.  I am seeing sprouts of newness all around me.  I see the former things that were dead and cold quickly waning.  It's like March in my season I'm in.  March is very up and down.  You may have an 80 degree day one week and the next week 24 inches of snow.  You tread through March really not knowing what to expect.  That is the season I am in.  You venture into March with hope and dread.  Sometimes, March feels like forever...March Madness...is this month EVER gonna end.  So tired of winter and death....so over it all, yet looking forward to the hope of newness...Up and down days...some days feel amazing other days like they will never end.  I try to focus on the sunshine...some days the clouds cover it victoriously.  Other days, the brilliance of the warmth of it's radiant beams disperse the clouds and skies are blue and clear. 

I try to stay full of hope...Hopeful...I want to be so saturated with the warmth of God's love that no bitter frozone could touch the fiery passion of His presence in my life.  Some days I need to throw alittle accelerant on the blaze of my love for him...When I keep my focus on the one who will walk with me through every change....when I do not look to the left or to the right and Know that this too will pass, I am strengthened enough to open my bible and read His promises. 

My God is for me.  He is never against me.  He will never leave me.  He will never forsake me.  He is always good.  He is always God.  He changes not.  Even though seasons change, He does NOT change.  Even though my emotions change, my circumstances change, my life changes....God DOES NOT CHANGE. 

Change is a really good thing.  Change is necessary!  Change is important.  We are transformed from glory to glory.  If we did not change, we would stay the same...When things remain the same, dormancy occurs...complacency happens...passivity is all around.  Could you imagine if life suddenly became like Ground Hog's Day?  Every morning you woke up, you were stuck in winter and nothing progressed forward!  O Please Jesus, wake me up from that horrible dream now!

This is a movie so we can look at it like being stuck in the same season over and over and over would have benefit to it...but that's Hollywood.  Changing of seasons is important.  Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. As I am in this season of change, I want to be one that will be ready IN season and OUT of season.  I want to be one that has FRUIT available in the winter season and in the HARVEST season.  I want the Lord to use my life and the transformations of my days for his glory...So, I chose to embrace the changes that are fast approaching.  I will look forward and know that God holds my days in His hands.  He wants the best for me...So as one season is ending and another beginning, I hold fast to my faith and say, "Lord, I trust you through it all!"

"Choose to call out to God and Worship Him in the midst."

Father,
I thank you for strengthening me through this process of change.  I want to be a vessel useful for your glorious works...So do what you need to do in me to prepare me for the next season of my life.  I pray you are glorified in all I do.  You are good!  You are faithful!  You are the same today, yesterday and forever.  You change not.  Even though I change and transform from glory to glory, you do not change.  You are reliable...You are dependable...You are my hiding place.  You are my refuge.  You are my ever present help in the time of need and I know that you will work all things out for my good.  Thank you God for being so good to me.  I love you!

Proverbs 8 - Fear of the Lord

Arise and shine for the glory of the Lord has risen among you.  Isaiah 60:1

Sometimes I feel as though life is walking on a tight rope.  It's a fine line between pleasing the flesh and pleasing God.  Lines sometimes blur and the road narrows.  Once I gave my life fully over to Jesus, I never, ever wanted to look back.  I was so depressed and hopeless.  I couldn't see very far in front of me.  Everything was dark and chaotic.  Every decision I made at that time seemed to only lead downward...and I couldn't stand without falling.  I didn't know how to pray.  I didn't have anyone pointing towards the light.  We were all in the dark.  That was all we knew.  So when the light of Jesus' love came shining down like a beacon of hope, I never wanted to ever not walk in that light. 

Life has been so far from perfect since that day I surrendered my life to Jesus...but let me tell you something...It has been so much more full of hope, peace, joy, light and love.  I had to battle to get to where I am now.  I had to fight.  I had to fight my fleshly desires of longing for destructive behaviors.  It was how I was conditioned to live.  It was all I knew...As Holy Spirit shined his search light into the deep places of my insides...my heart...my brokenness.  I had to choose whether or not I would give him those parts or I would remained ashamed, hidden and condemned in those deep, dark places. 

How much we want to be healed and set free is always our own choice.  When I decided to stop smoking.  I had to fight that demon of addiction.  I had the power of choice.  When I decided to stop drinking.  I had to chose...I had to fight that demon of addiction.  When the enemy would torment me over past pains and aches...I had to fight the accusations and lies that would have led me right back into that dark world.  See, we have the power of choice.  We can chose this day whom we are gonna serve.

We don't realize that everyday is a battle.  It's a battle for our souls.  God has a destiny for our lives and so does the prince of this world.  The flesh loves the comforts that the prince of this world offers.  Instant gratifications.  Instant pain relief...Instant fixes...Instant releases from tormenting thoughts....Instant pleasure...Instant fulfillment...Both with the instant empowerments...come a quickly and sudden let down of fulfillment and desires.  We are usually left with more of an emptiness than what we started out with.  We were made for purity.  We were made for commitment, covenant, loyalty, perseverance, righteousness...We are made in the image of the trinity...Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  In Genesis...in the beginning....God said, "Come let US, make man in OUR image..."  So all the potential goodness we read in the word of God is our potential. 

 Even though it may seem we have a bend toward evil desires by succumbing to the lusts of our flesh...We also have a bend towards righteousness and holiness...we are made in the image of Christ.  Our flesh will always be weak...Our spirit will always be willing.  It's a continual battle.  We are in a daily battle.  So the people who say, there is no god....In essence they are bowing down and serving something.  When we serve our addictions, our lusts, our sinful nature...it becomes our lord.  It is our master.  Why do you think so many people say, "I just can't stop.  I just can't quit.  I just can't...."  They have become the slave to the very thing they give into.  Jesus came to show us the pathway to the Light...to step up out of that darkness and even though we become a slave to righteousness...it's so much better than being a slave to sin.  There is hope, peace, love, joy, righteousness, goodness, kindness, every good thing abounds in and around us because we are an open heaven...The kingdom of God is within us.  So even though the darkness surrounds us, we become the light because the light of the world dwells inside of us.

I started this morning asking the Lord what He had for me in scripture and I heard him say this:

Proverbs 8:13-36-  You can read this on your own.  I will put a link to biblegateway.  Proverbs 8

"The FEAR of the LORD is to HATE evil!  Pride and ARROGANCE and the evil way and the Perverted speech I hate."  The fear of the Lord is also the beginning of wisdom.  Proverbs 8 is talking about the benefit of Wisdom.  It will protect us and guide us in our life.  Because everything starts with knowing that in the darkness, God still sees you...JESUS is the LIGHT of the World.  So you cannot hide from God.  Scripture says that even if you go to SHEOL (HELL) you cannot hide from him.    I see so much pain on the faces of such beautiful creations...God's lost sons and daughters and my heart hurts for them.  Because stubbornness, pride and arrogance keeps them separated from God's love.  They chose darkness over the light because of pride...Pride comes before a fall...That pride puffs up and it's not love.  The prince of this world...wanted to BE god...He wanted to ASCEND higher than God's throne...He became so full of pride and arrogance.  That is why this verse is saying the fear of the Lord is the hatred of Evil.  Pride and arrogance and perverted speech are the fruit of who people are bowing down to.  It's the evidence of the god with a little 'g' they are serving. 

There is another way.  It's a way that leads to life.  It's to walk in wisdom.  It's to surrender to the one that loves us more than we could ever possibly know or understand.

The specific scripture I heard the Lord say to dwell on this morning was Proverbs 8:15.

Wisdom is saying, "By me kings reign, and rulers decree justice!"

God seats us in heavenly places to rule and reign with him in justice and righteousness...We have royalty in our blood....We are made in the image of the king of kings and Lord of Lords.  We just have to surrender everything to God and trust him...Trust him in every detail of our lives...

Father,

We thank you.  We thank you for the hope of your word.  We thank you for the light of Jesus's love that shines into the deep dark places inside of our brokenness and calls us out of darkness into your glorious light.  We thank you that you love us and you want us to walk in all that you created us to walk in.  Father, I pray you strengthen our spirits so we can resist the devil and he will flee from us.  I thank you that you strengthen us to stand up to the fleshly desires that weigh us down and cause us to self-destruct.  I thank you for you love.  I thank you for the blood of Jesus.  I thank you for loving a wretch like me. 

The Greatest Show on Earth

Arise and Shine for the Glory of the Lord has risen among you!  Isaiah 60:1

It's been a while since I've written a blog and I am feeling the nudging of Holy Spirit to begin stirring up that gift inside.  I'm in a new season.  I'm in a fresh season.  The way I heard from Holy Spirit before is different.  I used to remember my dreams.  My sleep patterns have changed a bit and so when I wake up, it's to a dog licking my face abruptly out of my sleep.  I used to have time to ponder and reflect as I slowly woke up from that dream.  So it's not that I'm not dreaming, I'm not retaining memory of the dream.  As I asked the Lord about that, He said, "It's a different season.  It's fresh manna." 

So we have to constantly be receiving from the Lord in fresh ways, unfamiliar ways in each new season.  In this season, I get visions regularly or impressions or pictures.  Then, the Lord will add a deeper understanding of what I'm seeing it and why. 

Yesterday at intercessory prayer, I was tired.  I wasn't 'feeling' it.  I was there, but I wasn't on the same page as the other intercessors.  The majority was ready to war and dance and battle in the spirit for breakthrough.  I just wanted to soak in God's presence and take a nap and hope for a download from heaven.

Pastor Matt was drumming on the drums and others were praying and exposing things being revealed  by Holy Spirit.  I started seeing a three ring circus.

As everyone was decreeing and binding, I was seeing a vision of a Three-Ring Circus.  I asked the Lord, "What does this mean?"  I felt like He said that the church as it is now has become a Three Ringed Circus.  Why Three?  Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  The Ring Master is the one who controls what happens in the church.  He decides how much of Father goes in a ring.  How much, if any, of Holy Spirit can go into another ring.  How much of Jesus can go into another ring.  The church was never meant to become a show for spectators.  People pay to go to the circus.  For what?  Entertainment.  They get to see things they don't see everyday.  They enable the abuse and mistreatment of circus animals all for a laugh, ooo, aww or two. 

I boycotted circuses years ago.  So this vision had even more of a stigma attached to it for me.  Why? you ask?  I am from Hookstown, PA.  Anyone who knows of Hookstown, knows that yearly a huge fair is put on called the Hookstown Fair.  One year, they had a three ring circus at the fair.  I took my children.  I sat there and instead of looking through the eyes of entertainment.  God opened my eyes to see the heart of the animals.  I sat there and watched the elephant trainer make these huge wondrous animals do stupid tricks for people's entertainment.  It broke my heart.  I became completely undone when a huge elephant was very close to me.  As a mother of four small children, my guard was on high alert knowing that there had been a recent stampede in a circus involving the elephants...but I looked into the elephants eyes and I saw her/him crying.  There were literal tears around the elephants eyes.  I felt so sickened in my spirit...Like God, why?  Why? are people so cruel?  Why do we find pleasure in this amazing creature's imprisonment?  Even in reliving this experience, I find tears streaming down my cheeks. 

After that moment of realization that paying these clowns to mistreat elephants and endorse it by coming to circuses for my own entertainment, I boycotted circuses.  This vision about being at a three-ring circus would go against my core beliefs.  So here I am seeing this three ring circus in a vision.  I said, "What else Lord?"  He said His church was never meant to be a three ring circus.  We are made in image of Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  We are not to package it up and sell it.  The church has become something he never designed it to be.  It's chaotic.  It's a bigtime business of selling the ringmaster's puffed up pride.  It's controlled.  It's time allotted.  It's entertaining.  People usually leave church the same way they leave a three ring circus.  Unfulfilled, unchanged, and untouched by Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.  Is the way the church functioning right now working?  NO!  I see more transformation take place when I go out onto the streets to minister.  We are the church...Jesus is the chief cornerstone.  Jesus told Peter that he was the rock on which he would build his church. 

(Matthew 16:18 - "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."  The very next verse is what we were literally doing during intercession...We were binding and loosing.  ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[e] loosed in heaven.”

God has given the five-fold ministry to the church.  There should NEVER be a Ring Master containing which show or which part of the trinity to be displayed during the entertainment of church. That's not biblical.  In Ephesians 4, we read.   

 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ² Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³ Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

Notice how it's all ONE...ONE body...ONE Spirit...ONE Lord.  ONE Faith.  ONE Baptism.  ONE God and Father of all...it's not a circus.  There shouldn't be division and different shows going on...It shouldn't be a place of disorder and chaos.  We are to bear with one another in love.  We are to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the Bond of Peace.  When something is bonded to another thing...It's like superglue.  Try getting superglue off of your fingers...It's almost impossible.  We are to be superglued to peace.  Is this what most churches look like? 

 Let's look at what the root cause of why most churches are like three ring circuses.  When you have a ring master controlling the environment and displaying shows...the focus is off of their personal lives.  They don't have to be transparent and vulnerable.  They bring in the clowns and displace attention off of their own lives.  That gives permission to stay hidden in their own shame.  They can keep sinning and pull out the grace card and never be exposed because they are too busy entertaining the critics with clowns and chaos.  God wants transparency.  God wants vulnerability.  We are to confess our sins one to another.  So then in exchange, the ringmaster will put the attention on the abused and wounded.  That empowers them to feel elevated and above others.

We need to let go of our past.  How?  We need to be real.  We need to deal.  We need to confess, repent and receive the true forgiveness of Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit will wash away our muck and junk.  The blood of Jesus redeems, restores, and cleanses us.  What does shame do to the church?

Let's talk about the abuse of the animals in the circus.  These animals are wild.  They are meant to live in freedom.  They were never meant to learn how to entertain in a circus.  They are wild and are to be free.  So let's look at us.  We are the same.  God created us to be wild and free.  Holy Spirit comes down and tongues of fire appear.  Demons flee, blind eyes open, deaf ears hear, mute speak, limp leap and salvations cause the angels in heaven to rejoice.  This is wild!  It's not chaotic.  It's freedom.  It's what the church is to look like.  Does it?  No!  Why?  ABUSE

"Abuse creates shame.  An abused child feels powerless.  Abuse may be physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, or even spiritual.  If the child seeks help and does not get it, they may decide that it is them who has done something wrong; I caused this, I did something to make this happen.  Shame will grow from this simple lie!" -Sarah McDowell.

Shame may be transmitted directly through words spoken.  Did you ever hear any of the following?  "Everything was fine until you came along!"  "You're no good!"  "You're just like your father!  You'll never amount to anything!"  "Can't you do anything right?"  "Don't you have any sense?"  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"  "Shame on You!"  "It's your fault."

This is chaotic.  This is confusion.  This is cursed word!  This is how shame comes and what happened in the garden when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of good and evil?  They became ashamed.  They hid from God.  See this three ring circus creates an environment where you can hide from God and never have to deal with your shame that was placed on you through blame and accusation. 

Let's read from Ephesians 4 again, picking up at verse 7.

⁷ But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ⁸ This is why it says:

“When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”

⁹ (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? ¹⁰ He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)

¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

See, we were never meant to be a three ring circus.  We are to become the body of Christ.  ONE heart....ONE MIND....ONE Body!  ONE SPIRIT!  There should never be a ring master....

We were given the five fold gifts....1.  Apostles, 2.  Prophets, 3.  Evangelists, 4.  Pastors, 5. Teachers.

Why?  So the body of Christ may be built up...NOT TORN DOWN!

Father,
We repent of discord.  We repent for allowing your church to become a three ring circus.  We repent, Father, for coming to church to watch a show.  We repent for allowing one man or woman to be elevated to a place of idolatry over you.  We repent for making the church a money making business.  We repent for watching and being entertained as abused ones are not set free to be who you created them to be.  Father, forgive us.  We ask that you cover us with the blood of the lamb.  We ask Holy Spirit that you come in power and in might and refresh and revive the church.  Awaken your bride, O God.  Awaken your church.  Open our eyes to see.  Open our ears to hear.  Awaken our hearts, O God!  We thank you and praise you in Jesus name.

Ephesians 5:13-17