RANDOMNESS

December 12, 2011 

#TimTebow detractors – “me thinks thou dost protest too much!”
...this is why, here’s what JESUS said about all this:

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in [done through] God.
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

John 3:19-21; 16:22,23 KJV

Randomness for June 3, 2011

Wow, the Lord is really hammering it home that there is some stuff coming down the pike; He is not letting up about it, folks.  And today it really hit home that I’ve gone along thinking it was all going to be farther down the road, but He is telling me I need to be ready, too.  I need to be ready to back up some of the “Peter” characteristics I tend to show now and again…   I have been known to let my overwhelming love for the Lord overload my mouth – just a little!  Just like Peter in the boat:  “Is that you, Lord?!  Bid me come to you!”  What was Jesus supposed to say to that, no?  He knew Peter would falter and sink, but it was too late, Peter had run his mouth.  Just like when he said Jesus couldn’t go where they were going to kill him, or when he jumped up and cut off the ear of the soldier…  and just like when he swore he would never deny Jesus.  He meant that with everything he was worth – at the time he said it.

Peter had no idea what was about to happen.

He had no idea just how vile the people were going to become, how hateful the mob mentality would push people.  He had no idea the horrors he was about to witness happen to the man he had come to love and know as the Son of the living God…  who just took it and did nothing.  Peter was lost and confused, everything he had come to know and apparently what he’d come to expect, was now shaken to the core and left in a heap of dust.  When he was confronted, the sudden fear that gripped him was more than he could cope with in the seconds he had to process it and his reaction was denial.  Fight or flight.  He chose flight.  And then he paid for it with a heartsickness only someone who truly loves the Lord with every fiber of their being can even begin to imagine.

A few years ago, I uttered some words that could have come straight from Peter himself.  They had to do with how far I was willing to go for my love and my gratefulness to Jesus for what He has done all my life.  And, bless God, it was from my heart, and He knows I meant it with every fiber of my being, at the time…   Now the Lord is showing me things that make me think, craaaaap!!!   Hahaha!

But, one thing I have over Peter, I know that after all the horrendous suffering and pain that Jesus went through that day on that hill, that He spent three days doing His Father’s work, taking back the keys to the earth for us, and then rose again, praise God.  So anything I ever have to face for Jesus’ sake would be nothing but another trophy for my case in heaven!  Oh, trust me, I’m just fine collecting them for winning souls and speaking out like this – I have noooo desire to be anybody’s martyr!!!  But should the days of persecution really come sooner than any of us really thought, and Daniel 11:33 does happen, I’m ready.  ‘Cause back in July of 2006, God told me Daniel 12:3 was for me!  Amen!!

Daniel 11:32-33

  And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. 

  And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.

Daniel 12:3

  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

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 Please Watch This Video and Listen to the Words...

Precious Pain

How many of us define ourselves by a pain we wear as some kind of badge of honor?

I did that…  for years I lived behind the pain I bore of heartbreak, abandonment, rejection.  I wore bitterness and resentment as armor for my daily walk through life.  “I’ve already been hurt as bad as I can be hurt, so you can’t touch me!”  There were even the years of getting my licks in before ‘they’ could hurt me, because you know they were going to – ‘everyone does’.  So I just left hurt in my wake wherever I went because I was going to draw first blood from now on, I was no longer the victim.

Never realizing that the entire time, that’s exactly what I was – a victim. 

I had fallen prey to yet another of the devil’s tactics because I was in this fight completely unarmed and ill-prepared.  Again, having grown up in a legalistic church that unwittingly, illogically, and against scripture itself, taught that the gifts and power and authority we are given from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ were only for the disciples – despite the fact that Jesus specifically stated all believers, whosoever, etc., and Hebrews clearly says in 13:8, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever.”   That is “for” and “ever,” not just “forever” to emphasize the infinitesimal, Alpha and Omega, omniscience of our God!

So for years I held that song as my ‘anthem’ and I was oh, so proud of myself for it.  

 

COLD AND ALONE, BUT IT KEPT ME ALIVE... I GAVE IT MY SOUL SO THAT I COULD SURVIVE; KEPT ME SAFE IN THESE CHAINS,PRECIOUS PAIN - HOW COULD I THINK OF TOMORROW WITH MY SORROW IN HAND?

Then one day, after the Lord had been working on my heart for a couple of years, He took me to a verse that scared the bejeebers outta me!

It was October 4, 2006.  I know because I marked the date in my Bible.  I do that.  I mark significant things like that to remind myself when the Lord speaks to me about things, then – as I hopefully progress in my walk, I can look back and see that yes, I have worked out what You showed me, Father, instead of…   uh-oh!    :O

Psalms 66:18

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

In other words – if I cherish sin in my heart, I block the blessings from the Lord!!  

I do that…  myself.  Nobody else.  Me.

And yes, clinging to the pain, the hurt, the anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the unforgiveness, is SIN in God’s eyes.  So you need to throw down that thing you think is a badge, because, turns out, it’s really just an invisible force field keeping God from blessing you the way He wants to!

It has been literally years since I've listened to this song, and were it not for the Lord putting it on my heart to give this message to whomever it is that needed to hear this today, I would not have listened again because it takes me back to a dark time in my life I really don't care to revisit.  If you are living this way, the Lord wants you to know He is standing at the door with His arms open, waiting for you to call to Him, too.  He is just waiting for you to put down the pain and the hurt and the anger and go to Him...   Really.  That's all He wants you to know.  He is standing there with His arms open, just waiting for you.  Are you ready yet?  Ready to let go of that weight you have been dragging around... 

As always, I am available for prayer, or to answer any questions I can if you want to contact me.  I pray the peace Jesus left us in John 14:27, His peace, on all who seek Him and wish to walk in relationship with Him, in His glorious name!

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Today's Randomness  3-9-11

Wow, just when I thought I’d heard all I could stand of this Charlie Sheen business – and I don’t even have TV! – along comes Matthew Barnett, son of Pastor Tommy Barnett and founder of the Dream Center in the heart of L.A.  On a K-LOVE radio interview this morning he said something that struck a chord deep inside of me and I had to repent for the harsh way I have felt toward this celebrity who, as it turns out, has been drug down the same path of lies of the devil as I was, except of course, on a much more public scale than just the national open wheel racing scene!

I sorta hate when God does that…   have to tell you!   :P

So, Matthew Barnett is saying he listened to Sheen venting in some interview about how he was labeled a drunk and a womanizer, but if he went to rehab he was still labeled a drunk and a womanizer, so he couldn’t win or something to that effect?  Apparently he decided to give the public what they labeled him as; since he was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t?  Yes…  yes, that is an incredibly lame thing to say…  it is an incredibly weak excuse for poor life choices!  But let me tell you – until you have walked a mile in those particular shoes…   you have nooo idea what life is like inside a person's skin who’s lived under such weight of word cursing without knowing that’s what it is – trust me.

I am loathe to say this, but when I was in, oh, I guess it was my early thirties, I actually told my Dad, who, alongside my beloved Grandma, meant the whole world to me, something to the effect of, “Well, congratulations, I’m just the f’up you always said I would be.”   Today Pastor Barnett said when he heard Charlie Sheen say that, what he heard was a person who had given up.  I remembered that day on the phone with my Dad, I remember exactly where I was standing in my kitchen the second those words left my mouth.  That’s exactly how I felt – like I had thrown in the towel, laid down.  

All I’d ever heard growing up was that I would “never amount to anything.”  Now, let me clarify right quick, that did not come from my Dad, those were only the sentiments he had hammered into him that came out, and I do not hold him responsible for all the ills in my life!  Neither do I hold the source of such horrible things to say to any child, let alone your own, responsible.  No, ultimately, this was all the handiwork of the enemy, Satan, whom the Bible warns “roams about like a roaring lion seeking whom it can devour” (1Peter 5:8) and my God-given free-will choices.

I just wish I had known then what I know now.  I wish when I was taken to that little Foursquare church by my piano teacher when I was in the sixth grade that I had more knowledge of the Holy Spirit and stayed then, so I could have learned what it would end up taking me another 40 years to learn…   oh well, I guess Moses and I both had some stubbornness God needed to work out of us?

Hmmmm…   So what’s the moral of the story?   Beats me!  There’s a slew of them in here, I suppose…  If God brought you here, He will tell you what He wants you to get from this.

Your words carry so much more power than you realize.  You speak blessings or curses over each and every person you come in contact with every day, and with your children – parents, please, please think carefully before you toss words out over your children that you may think are harmless, or that you may think are ‘for their own good’.  I just cringe in pain when I hear the way some parents speak to their children and my heart aches for them.  For those of you who have had this experience, word curses can be broken off of you.  There is nothing too big for God!  Your life will change when you let God do His job and fix the brokenness.  He does it so much better than we can.  He is just waiting to bless you, I promise!  If you would like prayer, just ask, I’m always available.