Archive for the ‘Parents’ Category

Heaven’s Deepest River

Posted: March 28, 2011 in disciples life, Parents, teaching, wilderness
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We have entered the time of transition to the kingdom of God. God is sending forth His sons empowered from heaven to establish His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Many are having supernatural encounters with God today! – Encounters for empowerment to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

FOR THOSE WITH AN EAR TO HEAR – TODAY – THIS DEEPEST RIVER FROM HEAVEN CAN BE IMPLANTED IN YOU AND YOU WILL BE TRANSFORMED and EMPOWERED. TODAY, GOD WANTS TO TAKE YOU INTO THE DEEPEST RIVER OF HEAVEN.

The supernatural empowerment to establish the kingdom of God is in this deepest river – all the power – all the life – all the wisdom – everything needed. God is now taking His sons to a new place IN HIM.

At this writing I am almost 69 years old and have sought to serve our Lord for 48 of those years. I have had many experiences with God and a few major encounters. What happened to me a few weeks ago exceeded all my previous experiences with God.

One of the most significant past encounters with God happened almost 20 years ago. To help understand what I am about to say, here is a very short nondescript account of some of what happened at that time.

I stood before the boiling fire of Father God and the Lord stepped out from the fire carrying a large sword and said, “Receive your anointing.” He touched me three times with the sword and stepped back into the fire of the Father. Two giant hands of the same fire appeared in the fire. One hand held a large vial like a cup or beaker filled with liquid fire. The other hand held a tall thin empty vial somewhat the shape of a test tube. I heard, “I am going to fill you with my love.”

The Father began pouring the liquid fire from the large cup into the test tube like vial. As the level rose in the vial, liquid fire filled me to the same level starting at my feet and rising up my body. When the liquid fire reached my arms it flowed down to my hands and streams of liquid fire began to flow out the ends of my fingers onto the ground. I was concerned that the liquid fire of God’s love was being wasted. I was told not to be concerned, that there was an endless supply and that I would never run short and to go ahead and be sloppy with it. As the level rose to the level of my eyes the liquid fire began to flow out of my eyes in two small streams just like was flowing out the ends of my fingers. Soon it began to ooze out the pores of my skin and I glowed all over with the liquid fire of God’s love. Though I have not been a perfect carrier of the liquid fire, this experience had a profound impact on me and radically changed my life.

The feeling that nothing greater could ever happen to me was shattered recently as I experienced an even greater encounter with God.

A few weeks ago at a Thursday night prayer meeting at World Revival Church, I was lying on the floor before the altar in the Spirit and God began dealing with me. I began to feel a great desire to be in the fire with God and not just standing before Him. I had never even had this thought before but now it was burning in me. The Word came to me that we have not because we ask not. I remembered that almost 20 years ago prior to that encounter I had asked to see the Lord and to receive anointing.

I asked God to take me into Himself – into the fire with Him.

Immediately I was transported into the fire of God and my life is forever changed. Everything of me is totally ruined for anything but God. I wept inside continuously for weeks and outwardly often. I am consumed.

Heb 12:29: For our God is a consuming fire.

I now have an idea what Paul meant when he said, “And I know that this man–whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows– was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” (2 Cor 12:3-4)

I had never dreamed what it would be like to really be literally in the Father – in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit – to literally be in the actual Fire of God.

To come to Jesus is awesome. But we need to remember that it is a primary purpose of Jesus to take us to the Father. And that He and the Father are one.

I was exposed to a brief glimpse of the unfiltered pure heart of the Father. I was not prepared for the shock of knowing His heart – His feelings about His children – His desires – His responses to His children – the very affect we have on the heart of Father God astonished me and broke me to nothing.

What I encountered in the heart of the Father has taken my life.

I am about to try to tell you the thing that ruined me for any life other that pleasing and serving Him – The thing that has made me to hate disobedience (sin) with a passion – The thing that has generated an intense passion to bless Him. This is the thing that has removed all shallowness and self focus and replaced it with a passionate depth of love, obedience, desire to serve Him, desire to worship Him and praise Him, and to see His kingdom established on earth.

The first thing that overwhelmed me was the indescribable intensity and vastness of the love of the Father for His people. It is absolute purity and absolute passion an unending unstoppable immeasurable flow of God. I have no words to describe the experience of becoming one with the love of God. It is inexpressible love.

The next thing that I experienced is the thing that killed me. Personally, I believe that this next thing may be one of the things Paul spoke of when he said, in 2 Corinthians 12, “He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” Could it be that it was not then time for this to be told but that the time has come?

The next thing I experienced in the heart of the Father was unfathomable intense pain – immeasurable sorrow – deep distress beyond measure caused by the indifference of those He loves. The lack of response or improper response to this awesome love has created a vast brokenness in the heart of the Father.

The deepest river in heaven is the broken hearted ness of Father God.

Our Father, the source of all love – the one that is love – the one with love beyond all we can imagine has a broken heart filled with painful desperate passionate longing. One cannot be deeply hurt by those whom one does not love deeply. The more deeply one loves the more deeply one can suffer pain from that love. The love of God for His children and His Bride exceeds all love.

The casualness of God’s people toward His complete passionate love has created immeasurable pain in the heart of God. God’s heart is breaking for His disobedient unresponsive Bride who chooses to ignore His great passionate love and to seek romance with other things of this world.

The pain of His immeasurable love was clearly felt and spoken in the Garden of Gethsemane. The exceeding pain and deep distress in God’s heart is the same pain felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus only did what he heard and saw the Father doing. Our God is one. The distinct characteristics and work of Christ and the Holy Spirit become very apparent as they move out from the Father. But inside the Father they are one. The feelings of grief of the Holy Spirit and the deep sorrow of Christ are felt in the heart of the Father.

What was happening in the heart of the Father at Gethsemane?

Mat 26:36-39: Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

Those among us who have loved someone very deeply and felt the pain of that person pulling away from us may begin to grasp the depth of painful longing in God’s heart caused by those whom He loves. Those who have known His love and then allowed their affection to move to something or someone else causes great pain in God’s heart.

Inner pain mixed with genuine forgiveness becomes and increased intensely passionate flow of real love. But if it is mixed with resentment it can become intense bitterness in the heart. God has complete forgiveness and therefore no bitterness. The pain in God’s heart becomes an increased flow of extreme passionate love for His people. This love flows like a deep and mighty river toward all mankind.

God is pouring out his love to all mankind equally. He loves all people unconditionally. He loves those who love Him and he loves those who hate Him. He loves His friends and enemies all the same.

But all do not respond to His love the same. Some come closer and others move further away. Those who come closer receive more because they choose to draw near to God and are greatly blessed. Others, who choose to move away to live in darkness, are cursed by the same love that blesses those who come to His light. Those who do not receive and respond to the love of God offend the love of God.

One definition for jealously is love offended. God is jealous when His love is offended by lack of proper response from those He loves. God refers to Himself as jealous several times in the Bible. Jealousy leads to wrath caused by the love of the husband for His wife.

Exo 20:3-6: “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Deu 4:24: “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

God speaks of His wife having other gods as committing spiritual adultery. A man destroys himself when he chooses to not respond to the love of God and has affection for other things.

Prov 6:32-35: But a man who commits adultery lacks judgment; whoever does so destroys himself. Blows and disgrace are his lot, and his shame will never be wiped away; for jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge. He will not accept any compensation; he will refuse the bribe, however great it is.

God’s love offended becomes jealousy. Jealousy arouses wrath and is an expression of the intense passion of the love of God for His people.

God’s pain and sorrow began even before He created man. Lucifer and the angels, who rebelled, greatly dishonored and shamed God in His own home territory of heaven. Perhaps this has something to do with the creation of man in Satan’s home territory of earth. Man was created, in part, for the purpose of restoring honor to God by properly responding to His love. We are just now beginning to grasp that God has an awesome need for us to respond to His love.

Christians today are generally accustomed to looking to God to meet their needs. For centuries we have trusted Him to meet our need for a savior to save us from the penalty of sin and more recently many trust Him to save them from their sinful lifestyles. Many have learned to trust Him for financial provision; healing and other practical needs as well.

But for the most part, we are just now catching on to the reality that we exist to be an object of the love of God and thereby meet the need of God’s heart. Our purpose is to receive and respond to the love of God.

Many revived Christians today have discovered the unconditional love of God and some have erroneously concluded that because Father God has such great love for them that they will be no repercussions for their lack of response to His love. They have not known the pain they cause in the heart of God by frolicking with the Father and then walking away and entering into disobedience to Him.

It is true that God’s mercy is endless and at the cross our sin debt is fully paid. It is also true that the cross must again be visited and the blood applied because of our disobedience. Our “little sin” or disobedience may seem insignificant to us. We know forgiveness and redemption is available for us in the cross. But we do not know the pain in the heart of God every time the cross must again be applied and we crucify the Lord afresh in the heart of God. We greatly pain our loving Father with our carelessness.

The glory of the next great outpouring of God upon the Eastern USA and eventually the world is dependent on the people of God responding to God’s love by drawing close to Him and stepping into the all-consuming fire.

God is greatly pleasured when love arises from earth to Him in heaven. When we respond to God’s love and send it back to Him with our commitment, our obedience, our praise, worship, and honor giving prayer, our sacrifice of fasting, and sacrificial offerings – when we become living sacrifices to Him.

When we respond to His love, the more we give the more we receive. God is so pleased and so gratified when filled with the love response of His people that he pours out blessings of everything we need and more. He comes with His presence in great glory and manifest among His people. He pours out special anointing of healing, deliverance, and miracles of many kinds. We have all the money, all the goods, all that we need to fulfill His plan and more when we respond to His love by giving our lives as a living sacrifice.

We must fill His heart with our total love for Him. We must give Him generous expressions of that love. Those who will sacrifice their self-life to live only for Him and will come all the way into His consuming fire of love bless him. We must fill His heart with joy by properly responding to His unconditional immeasurable love.

The greatest result of all this is that we actually become a blessing and a giver to our loving Father. But surely the next greatest blessing is that as we give we release the deep river of power, strength, wisdom, gifting, miracles, and all that is needed to establish His kingdom on earth. Every apostle and every prophet, pastor, evangelist and teacher of God who fully enters into this fire and sacrifices all as a gift to God will have the empowerment to establish the kingdom of God on earth now.

The powerful love of God will flow through leaders and whosoever will abandon this life and move into the fire of God. All flesh will leave, only powerful spiritual sons will remain, and nothing will be impossible to us as Christ is formed within. Even if we have great revelation of many facts, times, and things they will not profit unless we are put to death by the awesome love of God.

It is time to pray for God to finish us off – to go ahead and kill us now. That we may enter fully into the very heart of God through our brokenness.

There is today an open door without veil before the church to walk into the holy of holies – the fire of the Father himself and it will only be done through brokenness.

We can forget accomplishing anything with our gifts and intellects. In the fire of God, only our weakness of brokenness will provide the flow of power to make our revelations work to change the world to the kingdom of our God.

All aspects of life will be affected as people are consumed by the love of God. Those who minister will do so by the supernatural power of the kingdom of God. Those who work in government will begin to rule according to the power of the kingdom of God. Those who work in business will begin to work by the principles and power of the kingdom of God. Those who do anything will do it for the kingdom of God, by the supernatural power, and according to the principles of the kingdom of God. This is the season of change from the ways of self centered greed based life to the serving giving love of the kingdom of God ruling all life.

Sons will be raised up in all walks of life and service. They will receive and respond to the love of God and order their lives and all they possess or influence by the kingdom for God ways. There will be many fathers and many teachers in the land bringing forth the truth of God by the living example of the clear word of their testimony.

This is the season of the transition. The source of power for the transformation is the love of God. The method is our responding fully to the love of God by taking that final step into the very fire of God rather than just standing nearby.

Keep on Pursuing Love,
It Will Never Fail,

Ron McGatlin

http://www.openheaven.com

Suffering – The sharpening of the Righteous!

Posted: March 17, 2011 in disciples life, Parents, teaching, wilderness
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“I had heard of You [only] by the hearing of the ear, but now my [spiritual] eye sees You. Therefore I loathe [my words] and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
(JOB 42:5,6 AMP)

Listening to what others say about God does not even begin to compare to see Him with your own eyes. We read about Job’s life and in his story we find the answer to an old age question as to why the Creator of all will allow the righteous too suffer! In the answer we find that there are many things we all need to know about God and on a personal level we not only need know about Him but about ourselves as well. We can not find these answers without going through the fires of trials.

The most important lessons can never be learned simply through sitting in or class or reading a book for that matter. These lessons will be learned during the dark nights, in the middle of the deep valley’s, and the heaviest battles of tribulation.

It is these moment’s when our faith is put to its greatest test – it is stretched to the point that we believe it can be stretched no more – yet when we have gained the victory, through Christ – we look back to see our faith has been enlarged and strengthened.

Painful? Yes, but a needed ingredient in our walk, even as the suffering of a young shepherd boy, anointed King of a nation yet having his faith stretched for 20 some years after his call, walked into the position of king of Israel, a seasoned warrior.

And it is during these times when we cry out, Father deliver me – yet like the school teacher who has answered all your questions leading up too the test, remains silent to answers during the exam, for they have already giving you the answer to question, now its time for you to apply it. So is the way of our Lord, Yeshua, He is there standing before us, He is even praying for our success in passing the test nevertheless He understands that it is a needed process for our growth.

For indeed we serve an Awesome God!!

Un-forgiveness – A wall between you and God’s favor

Posted: March 16, 2011 in disciples life, Parents, teaching
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“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Never murder. Whoever murders will answer for it in court.’ But I can guarantee that whoever is angry with another believer[a] will answer for it in court. Whoever calls another believer an insulting name will answer for it in the highest court. Whoever calls another believer a fool will answer for it in hellfire. “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember there that another believer has something against you, leave your gift at the altar. First go away and make peace with that person. Then come back and offer your gift. (Matt 5:21-23 GW)

When the Lord says “Never murder,” it included more than literally taking a brother’s life. It included anything that may harm our brother.
It included any evil thought against our brother; it included any railing accusation we might bring against our brother by calling him “Raca,” or thou empty fellow; it included calling our brother a fool. Although this doesn’t mean we cannot admonish a person for foolishness or vanity, it means we are not to use the word fool in a demeaning way to exalt ourselves above our brother. The spirit of the law of the sixth commandment is that we should esteem our brother ahead of ourselves.

It’s interesting to note that the Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) in verse 22 The refers here to a fellow disciple, whether man or woman; also in verse 23.

Now, the scripture I began with states, ” So if you are offering your gift at the altar…” We want to consider this. What is meant by bringing our gift to the altar? What is the Lord Jesus teaching us here?

Many today teach that when Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,” Matt 5:21, that He abolished the law and ushered in a new morality, but this is not the case. They would argue that “by them of old time” Jesus referred to Moses and to the Old Testament law. Most of these people include the Ten Commandments when saying that the law has been abolished.

Now we must understand that these Scriptures, held in their proper context, clearly refer to the traditions and commandments of men imposed upon the people by the scribes and Pharisees. They do not, as many falsely assume and teach today, refer to the abolishment of the law because the Lord deals precisely with this. He says, “Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill,” Matt 5:17.

When the Holy Spirit convinces us of our sin by the mirror of the law, we learn to understand that sin is as incurable as leprosy. At this point we start to understand the leprosy of sin and that we are lepers spiritually.

Looking at Matt 5:23, we read ” So if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember there that another believer has something against you

Now that Jesus has admonished against heart and tongue murder, He holds up the mirror of the law, i.e., the spirit of the law saying, “But I can guarantee that whoever is angry with another believer[a] will answer for it in court. Whoever calls another believer an insulting name will answer for it in the highest court. Whoever calls another believer a fool will answer for it in hellfire,” Matt 5:22.

As we read this scripture we see how Jesus brings us before the mirror of self-knowledge to see the spiritual leprosy of the heart. Matt 5:23, ” So if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember there that another believer has something against you” teaches us the same truths as John 8:7-11 where Jesus spoke to the Pharisees who brought to Him the woman taken in adultery. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “The person who is sinless should be the first to throw a stone at her.”

So we must understand that remembering what our brother has against us is different from remembering what we have against our brother. In John 8:9 we read, “One by one, beginning with the older men, the scribes and Pharisees left. Jesus was left alone with the woman”. Why did they leave? They left because Jesus held the mirror of the spirit of the law before them which brought conviction into their own heart; they saw enough corruption in their own hearts that they had not one stone to throw at the woman.

Let me present you with this question, “when the Lord Jesus comes before us and says that we shall not call our brother “Raca,” and we shall not call our brother a fool, who comes home with clean hands? Who is there who does not become convicted in his own heart”?

As Jesus holds up this mirror of self-knowledge before our eyes, we understand James 3:2, “All of us make a lot of mistakes. If someone doesn’t make any mistakes when he speaks, he would be perfect.” We start to understand that we all offend, we are all guilty, we all make mistakes. This should bring us humbly before the Lord.

Sadly today we are surrounded by people who refuse to forgive, yet they profess forgiveness. I myself must continue to ask Holy Spirit to guard my own heart that “self” does not rise up and opens the door to un-forgiveness in my own heart. It amazes me when I come across supposed leaders who walk under the cloud of un-forgiveness and then wonder why God has put a wall up against their ministry and they begin to walk as though they have stepped out of the favor and anointing of the Father..

If we would with honesty look into the mirror of God’s law, we cannot stand as the Pharisee in the temple and say, “… God, I thank you that I’m not like other people! I’m not a robber or a dishonest person. I haven’t committed adultery. I’m not even like this tax collector. Luke 18:11. We cannot say “Raca,” or thou fool, to anybody but ourselves.

We have to come before the Lord and say, “Lord, I am such an empty fellow; Lord, I am such a fool.” Then we cannot say “thou fool” to a fellow man. We start to see the foolishness of our own evil nature; we start to see the corruption that dwells within us.

Friends, let us cry out to God for the mind of Christ and His nature. We must understand that when we entertain evil thoughts, whisper, or delight to speak ill of our fellow man in the presence of others, we seek a devilish delight. In the eyes of the Lord that is a total breach of the intent of the law. We stand in the Temple saying, “Lord I am not as that other man.” How can you or I tell one thing that is demeaning about our fellow man without exalting ourself as a Pharisee by saying “I hold myself above them.”? If we were not exalting ourself above the other man, what would there be left to tell which does not edify? We have to exalt our fellow man above ourselves because we see the emptiness of our own sinful heart.

Seeking satisfaction in one’s self by putting down another is devilish.

This was the cause of the first murder. The first murder on the face of the earth was caused by Cain seeking to set himself above his brother. We read in Gen 4:5, “But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.” Why? The Lord had respect unto his brother’s offering but not unto his. This made Cain wroth, or very angry.

If we are the people of light, let us shed every aspect of darkness. It comes down to the question of “how willing are we to truly being put to death”? Are we willing to lay down our name, our respect, our dignity and every other area that our life contains? If we hold to one area friends, we might as well as hold onto them all. Our Lord is not interested in being Lord over one area of our lives and allowing pride to rule the other.

We must shed every aspect of pride, die completely to self which can only be done as we grasp hold of the hand of Holy Spirit and allow Him to hold us under the power of the cross, that we through the Might of Holy God can truly be put to death, being fully baptized in the death of Christ, that we truly Live as He has called and purposed us too!

Today my dear brothers & sister, let us cry out to the Father with the prayer of His servant David; “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”.

We can never lead with a heart of un-forgiveness, we can never mature in the Lord with a life filled our hearts and thoughts anchored to un-forgiveness, we can never walk in the fullness of Christ if we allow un-forgiveness to be the reigns which steer our lives

Don’t live another day allowing un-forgiveness and selfish pride to rob you of the blessings and favor Father God has for your life.

For we indeed serve an Awesome God!

The possibilities of a transformed mind!

Posted: March 15, 2011 in disciples life, Parents, teaching, wilderness
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May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! (Eph 3:17-19)

Do find your self in a situation where you are dealing with someone impossible to get along with, at work, school or even in a marriage? Do you cry out to the Lord “O’ Lord, please change this person? Yet it seems to get worse and worse?

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: (Phil 2:3-5)

I have found myself in these situations many times. In fact for three years I cried out to God, please change so and so yet it was to no avail. Then one morning I was grumbling to Him about her and He answered me sternly “It is not my desire to change them to your liken, it is My hearts to desire to change you to accept them as My creation as well– for you too look at them through My eyes”. I thought to myself – Now, that is a radical impossibility. Yet once that Word was released into my life, Holy Spirit was like a blood hound on a trail, relentless in pursuit of bring this revelation to pass.

The Gospel Message put into action

Now, when I started putting the Word into action, the impossibility became possible. The same thing was transpiring with my employment. I would spent wasted hours thinking – Man, if God would only change the situation that I have it would become bearable, yet when I allowed Holy Spirit to transform my character to realize that I needed to start Praising Him in the midst of the storms at my work – the storms began to dissipate.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:8-10)

Now, do others still do things that irritate my fleshly man? Yes! Do situations arise at work that attempt to stretch my character to what appears to be its natural limit? Yes! Yet, when I allow the spirit man to rise up, when I put on the mind of Christ, my whole out look take on a different perspective. When I enter into to praising the Lord for my marriage, for my employment, as well as in many other situations though they change not from an outward perspective, from a spiritual perspective something changes in the atmosphere – it is as though the enemy, who once could position my sight soulishly on self, could stir of the carnal man with all its self appointed rights that come from carnal thinking lost his strength!

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:7-10)

The Lord allows us to enter into to situations that are death chambers to our flesh, so that through them we may die to self and come into victorious life in the spirit! It makes no natural sense, this radical idea of denying self and finding purposed good in every situation. What shouts of glory must echo through the halls of His Throne room, when He looks down and sees His children praising Him regardless of what this world throws at them.

If one can grasp the spiritual truth in this revelation, one will begin to see the power we have to quiet the storms of the enemy.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,” (Eph 2:14)

What a glorious sight it is, to be positioned with the three young men from then book of Daniel, who entering into the fiery furnace did not see the situation as of death, rather they where able to look past the flames that violently sought to consume them and find the Son of man standing right there with them, Reaching out and sheltering with His arms of life and protecting them!

“…and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come(Eph 1:19-21)

Is it easy? Not the least bit, in fact it is impossible in the natural man, yet in the spirit man, through the knowledge of Christ, all that He is it is a radical possibility that turn a natural impossibility in the a super natural possibility”

Disciples of the Lord, if you will allow Holy Spirit to transform your mind, to train you to put on the garments of praise your storms will loose their violence; the enemy will begin to lose his ability to toss you about on the strings of your emotions. When you position yourself to start viewing every situation you face, every person you encounter through His eyes – you will see miraculous atmospheric changes!

The transforming power of the Word of God!

Simply put, the Gospel renews the minds of those who embrace it, leading them to think with the righteousness of Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:17-24). The Gospel offers every human being the opportunity for clear-headedness, honest thought, holy plans, and the ability to see all of life through the eyes of the risen and victorious Savior of the world.

His grace released through you is a breath of Freedom to those who are bound!

People who are still in their sins cannot help but depend on futile, debased thinking for the hope and change they desire. They cannot break out of their sinful patterns of thought, their truncated worldviews and selfish plans, on their own power. They need the power of Christ, the power of the Gospel, to blow out the cobwebs of wrong thinking and move in the furniture and accoutrements of the mind of Christ.

And Jesus can do this, is doing this, and will do it for all who embrace His righteousness as their key to a liberated life. Our calling is not to be ashamed of this Gospel, so that we draw back from opportunities to make it known, but to live out the mind of Christ in all its fullness, and to invite our neighbors and friends to consider this Good News as the only way to real hope and real change.

“This is the reason I kneel in the presence of the Father from whom all the family in heaven and on earth receives its name. I’m asking God to give you a gift from the wealth of his glory. I pray that he would give you inner strength and power through his Spirit. Then Christ will live in you through faith. I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation. This way, with all of God’s people you will be able to understand how wide, long, high, and deep his love is. You will know Christ’s love, which goes far beyond any knowledge. I am praying this so that you may be completely filled with God.

Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory belongs to God in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time and eternity! Amen. (Eph 3:14-21)

Prison Breaking Revolutionary Love

Posted: March 4, 2011 in disciples life, Parents, teaching, wilderness
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If you [really] love Me, you will keep (obey) My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever–The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you………….The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.] (John 14:15-17, 21)

What is the very core which drives a person to serve the Lord!

If a disciple is driven out of fear of Hell they will consistently walk about under and imprisoned by the weight of condemnation and crawl down the road of works.

But what of the Lord’s words in this verse, are they directing us towards obedience? The key here is love, passionate love – that love that fuels ones willingness to go all out for the person they love regardless of the cost!

Passionate – unabandoned Love!

When I was dating my wife, I wanted to go all out to please her because I was so captivated by her beauty (and still am) and felt like I had to be in her presence every moment of the day. Not only that I just had to tell everyone about her.  I would wait, counting down the minutes for my next trip back to Pensacola to visit her. The time seemed to go by so slow in between trips and ever so fast during our visits but the love in my heart over-road any barriers that might try to deter me.

Now, as I look at my son Joshua I know that I do every thing I can to show him my love, something that was missing in my youth in regards to a male figure. In the very center though is love, I would lay my life down for my wife and son. Regardless of the cost I would pursue them regardless of the distance that was between us not out of obedience as a husband and as a father, it is fueled by a deep rooted passionate love for them. I know their love for me is not something that I have a list of things to follow in order to get their love for it is a gift and I simply do for them out of the love in my heart towards them. Even during the times when I may not be the best husband or dad they still love me!

In the same way it was like this when I first came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the one true Messiah at the age of fifteen while attending a David Wilkerson crusade, I was filled with excitement and wanted the world to know. My whole life was captivated by His love – it was so real, so strong, so consuming. I would read His Word because I wanted to know Him more, I would spend time in prayer because I wanted to hear His tender voice.

The prison of religion!

Then for a number of years I had the onslaught of doctrinal teaching in my life that at times, were steeped in (though carefully concealed by the enemy)  a works mentality. This started building a huge gulf between the Lord and I.  Not by His doing, for the whole time as I look back now,  I see that He was patiently, every so lovingly waiting for me with His arms wide open, beckoning for me to look at the bridge He had purchased with His own blood – the cross. For the cross of Christ is that bridge which allows one to escape from the confinement of sin,religion and bondage and step into a true freedom along with a relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Prison doors opened!

Over the past several years Holy Spirit has been stripping me of the religion – that like mud had become cakes upon me. He broke through the prison of religious thinking that became rooted in a “salvation by works” mentality and revealed the mystery and revelation of these verses – Now I see that I had allowed the enemy and myself to take something so beautiful, so free and turn it into something ugly and ever so burdensome.

If a disciple truly loves the Lord they realize that we do not obey all the Lords commands to gain His love and enter into a deeper relationship with Him, we do it out of a passionate motivation of Love. He loves us even before we know Him, while we are still sinners living a life of sin – He loves us because He loves us, there is nothing we can do that will erase that love or broaden that love –He gives it all unabandoned- He showed the ultimate depth of His love for us when He surrendered His own life that we might gain freedom and eternal life. As there Word proclaims – “There is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God”.

Revolutionary Love!

O’ brothers and sister if you can but grasp this revelation your spirit man will step into the radical side of this revolution against religion. The freedom to serve the Lord God, fueled by a deep seeded passion of love will revolutionize your whole life. This Love was and still is a stumbling block to many including Satan himself – The Fathers love for His creation is a mystery that has eluded the enemy from the first time he witnessed it in the throne room – He fully knows about it’s power and has been attempting to conceal its revelation since the days in the Garden. He has used the weapons of selfishness, hate, fear and religion for generations to build a prison about mankind that they might never see the love of God in its purity.

Yet, Praise God for 2000 plus years ago this Love walked willingly up to the cross, willingly laid His life down – allowing His own creation to nail His feet and hands to the very device that would take His life and when it was finished, His last breath poured out the heavens were torn and Gods love broke through in a manner that the world or hell for that matter had never witnessed before. Yet Hell it’s self could not contain and hold this Love – Yes and amen, for it broke through with such a force that the world or hell could never again block its power and authority. For now it has been poured out into human vessels with the same power that spoke the world into being.

Join the revolution!

If you have not experienced this Love, if it has not broke through and freed you from the dungeons of religion, pray and ask the Father to send Holy Spirit, who is The Spirit of Truth – For just one light glimmer of God’s true love will destroy every yoke of bondage that attempts to imprison the children of God.

This love once revealed and received will birth a freedom in the disciple’s life that will push them past a life of burdensome obedience into a life of willing servant-hood – a position where one no longer  serves obediently out of fear, rather serves obediently willingly- birthed from  from a position of passionate Love!

For indeed we serve an Awesome God!

Are you a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde “Christian”

Posted: March 3, 2011 in disciples life, Parents, teaching
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That no man transgress and overreach his brother and defraud him in this matter or defraud his brother in business. For the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we have already warned you solemnly and [e]told you plainly. For God has not called us to impurity but to consecration [to dedicate ourselves to the most thorough purity]. Therefore whoever disregards (sets aside and rejects this) disregards not man but God, Whose [very] Spirit [Whom] He gives to you is holy (chaste, pure). (1 Thes 4:6-8)

Now,  a student could read this and only look upon the sexual language here and not get the deeper meaning for which the apostle Paul is admonishing the hearers to whom this was written.

One of the greatest travesties in the modern church is the lack of true discipleship and mentoring. Thus we are left with a generation of immature Christians who have all the big words down pack yet they are spiritually void in regards to Spiritual character. We see through out his writings how Paul taught those whom the Lord had entrusted to him as students (disciples) how to walk, not how to talk. To talk well without living well will never bring us to heaven: for the character of those who are in Christ Jesus is this: They walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Yet this is lacking today in the body and Holy Spirit is breathing the fire of the Lord’s passion through out the Bride in this regard in the hour in which we live.  Watchman must rise up, teachers, mentors, mothers & fathers in the faith and come along side the young in faith and not merely be as the leaders of these past generations who have pridefully taught from a place risen above the others. They must be a leader like Jesus Himself and mix in with the people, to be a true servant, serving the needs of others.

In this day we have young men and women who are in leadership positions because they can talk the talk and are willing to nestle up to the “leaders” of the church to gain an important role, yet their character is far from that of Christ our Lord. They defraud their brothers & sisters in the faith. They cheat and steel, they leave their homes like war zones, their children are undisciplined.

Living a life as a spiritual Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde!

I praise God for the work and continued work of Holy Spirit in my own life, who upon shinning the light of purity and consecration on my character exposed a great void from that which the Lord called me to live, to which I was presently living!

I knew all the right words to express in the public place yet in the private place I was spiritually dead with regard to the character of Christ’s expression in my own life.  Anger prevailed in my private life, total disrespect of my wife, not parenting my son in the ways of the Lord, rather displaying for him the ways of Hell.

Praise God for a Father who loves enough to bring down His hand of discipline and through the continued conviction of His Word and Holy Spirit’s drawing, I fell upon the alter of the Lord, crying out for mercy.  From within a depth of my soul  crying out for transformation of my inner man – that the following Word manifest in my life;

“Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! (2 Cor 5:17 AMP)

O’ the years of hell that my wife, son and even myself had to go through before this came to pass – Yet had there been a true discipleship in my life – one where a brother comes along side and requires accountability in relationship one to another the chains that bound me from walking a truly sanctified life could have been broken earlier!

My prayer today is that true mentors of the faith will rise up and those who read this who are lacking in Spiritual character will cry out to the Lord, that He send such a person, matured in the Faith,  into their lives that will be as “Iron sharpening Iron”.

Wives do you have a husband who is as an Angel in public and a monster in private – Cry out to the Lord that He send a true mentor and friend – Husbands the same can be said in regard to your wives, parents towards your children (grown – for you should mentor your children who are young in age)

We must allow the work of Holy Spirit to come upon us –  birthing the true sanctification of the Lord in our lives or else we will never reach the place of maturity in our walk.

Friends, Pray today that Holy Spirit will search your life and see if there be  any deception, any spiritual lack in your character and allow Him to begin the spiritual surgery to heal and produce a spiritual “make-over” in your life today!

For Indeed we serve an Awesome God!

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