Jump into the Cleansing Stream!

What a weekend! I attended the Cleansing Stream retreat Friday and Saturday in Augusta, GA with a group from my church who have been going through a 12 week discipleship course to be cleaned out from the inside out! This is one of those things that cannot be explained but has to be experienced. It's all about the two things I am so passionate about....discipleship and inner healing!

There were hundreds of others who were also getting delivered from "stuff" that had kept them bound from that abundant life God wants us to have. The worship was amazing. At the beginning I entered the sanctuary with worship music going on that just stirred an expectancy of what God was about to do! As the weekend progressed, worship increased from people who were getting rid of all the garbage that was stopping them up from free worship...you can only imagine how free the worship was becoming as the weekend progressed.

God showed me some areas in my life that needed to be washed with His amazing Living Water that I did not even realize were issues. I have been walking through some trials lately, but they only served as primers to get me ready to be set free this past weekend! It is so true that God's truths will totally set you free! Now I want to offer this discipleship leading to diliverance at the Legacy Equipping Center this fall.

For those of you who are local, if you are interested in participating in Cleansing Stream at the Center, let me know. If you are interested in getting this started in your own church, click on the title of this post and it will take you to the Cleansing Stream website. You can see all about the ministry and hear some testimonies about what God has done in others through Cleansing Stream. Let me know if you start the program. I want to hear what God does! Below is a video of a testimony I got from the Cleansing Stream website.

Have a Cookie....or Not!

(The following is the article I wrote for my monthly ezine column “Sense”sational Musings for the April, 2010 edition of www.ithristnw.net.)

One day the Lord gave me a vision in my mind’s eye. I saw a woman taste a chocolate chip cookie and throw it down in a fit of rage, obviously upset with what she tasted. When she did, crumbs shattered all over the ground. Then she tried frantically to eat the cookie, but it was difficult because of all the crumbs.

I inquired of the Lord about the meaning of this vision. What came to me was that the lady represented any one of God’s children. The cookie represented the lady’s false image of what she thought God was. When God did not do what she thought He should do, she threw the cookie down in anger and it shattered. We need to keep in mind that the cookie represented the lady’s image of God; it did not represent God Himself. God did not shatter, because that was not who He truly is.

I then saw many cookies--each on their own platter--on both sides of a big hallway. These cookies represented more wrong concepts of God. They are cookies, because everyone says "He is good." Some that have been around for a long time are crunchy. Others are fresh-baked and soft.

A crunchy cookie has been the wrong concept of God for a long time in a person's mind. A soft one is a new wrong concept of God that is fresh baked. When one eats of it and throws it down, the newly baked cookie doesn't shatter, because it is soft. Consequently, though the taste of the soft cookie does not satisfy, it is not as disappointing as the old cookie that shatters into crumbs and is harder to eat afterward. Trying to pick up all the shattered pieces only leads to more anger. I had the sense that the first cookie in the vision was a very old cookie from the batch and that God understood that.

The Lord was showing me that even though the lady in the vision was so angry with God, deep down she really desires Him, or she would not have tried to eat all the crumbs afterward. He knows that. She will find Him because somewhere deep in the recesses of her heart, she wants to.

When we find ourselves holding on to cookies and we are angry at God, we need to surrender to Him so that He can take our deceptions and replace them with truth. This will only happen when we turn to Jesus. We have to go to Jesus without any of the cookies--or crumbs--in our hands, because if we have them when we approach Him, we will still be looking at the cookies instead of genuinely seeking God to show us who He truly is. We can either lay down the cookies before we approach the Throne, or we can ask God to take the cookies when we get to Him. Either way, we cannot hold on to them after we get to Him and expect answers. Jesus IS the answer, and He IS there. However, as long as we hold the platter of cookies we will not be able to see Him, because our focus will be on the cookies instead of Him. We will find that as we surrender our platter of misconceptions to the Lord, He will then give us food from Heaven that will be better than any cookie we have ever tasted! Unlike cookies, His food has everlasting sustenance that brings us nourishment for specific needs we are not even aware we have. 2 Cor. 3:14-18 talks about the Jews having a veil over their eyes when they read the scriptures. They have the truth in their hands, but they cannot see it. The Bible then says, "Nevertheless, when one turns to Jesus, the veil is taken away! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty!" FREEDOM!! He is FREEDOM--not just “good” like a chocolate chip cookie.

When we see Him as He truly is, love and true worship automatically flow out from the deepest part of us to God. Right now He reveals to us His character one concept at a time. Each time another false conception of God is taken away, we truly taste and see that He is good in that aspect of God, and it is everlasting! One day, when our corruption is overtaken by incorruption, and we are changed in the twinkling of an eye, we will see Him as He is--in His entirety--not one concept at a time, but every concept. 100% purity---and it is GOOD! It is then that we will experience everlasting FREEDOM forevermore!

Self-control - Two Different Ways

As I was waking this morning, the thought came to mind that there are two totally different kinds of self-control. Of course the good kind is part of the fruit of the Spirit found in Galations 5:22-23.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Self-control in this context is not so much me controlling myself as it is me allowing the Holy Spirit to have control of myself. Notice where it is in the order of the fruit of the Spirit. If the other characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit are in order (love, joy, peace, etc.), then it will be so much easier for self-control to happen.

This kind of self-control only comes through the spirit. The other kind of self-control comes through the soul. What's the difference? Man has three parts. The spirit is that core of us that communes with our Creator. The soul is made up of our mind, will and emotions. Our bodies are what we are walking around in. When sin entered the equation with Adam and Eve, their spirits died. Since then, all of us are born in sin. So all of us have a void where our spirits should be until we are "born again" by having that spirit come alive within us when we accept Christ's sacrifice that actually reconciles us to God again. How awesome that Christ's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, actually comes in to make residence within us!

Before that happens, self-control happens in the soul--our mind, will and emotions. This is when it is more me controlling myself, my way, and has tendency to end up in seeking control and manipulation over others as well. What I see happening in this is that the will sinks down, and the mind and emotions rise to the top. When this happens, the person makes decisions with their will based on their thoughts and how they feel. The outcome can be disastrous! That's probably another blog post if we were to get into what influences thoughts which influence feelings. Let's just say without being transformed by the renewing of the mind (as Romans 12 says), self-control ends up being much more bondage than freedom.

If we look back up to the scripture listing the fruit of the Spirit, we notice that it starts with a "but." That is a conjunction. We have to see what precedes it to get the full comparison of these two types of "self-control." Let's look at Galatians 5:19-21:

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Wow! That's what self-control without the Spirit leads to, and that is bondage. Read over those two scripture passages again (Gal. 5:22-23 and Gal. 5:19-21). Which would you rather have? Which would you rather those with which you have close relationships to have?

How do we do it? How do we get the freedom of self-control that brings peace and joy and not live in the bondage of control and manipulation? We have to look at the verses that precede and that follow the verses we've already read. First, let's look at the preceding verses of Galatians 5:16-18.

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."

Now let's look at the verses that follow all this by reading Galatians 5:24-25.

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

I pray that reading this post will help to spark a desire deep within the readers to want the kind of self-control that is from Galatians 5:22-23 and not the kind in Galatians 5:19-21. It's an awesome journey that leads to abundant life! One in which you can relax and take deep breaths of relief instead of hiperventalating trying to control your world!

One more thought...remember we are three parts? Spirit, soul and body? Well, our bodies benefit or suffer depending on which self-control you allow yourself to have. There are many reasons for sickness. I venture to say, though, that a big portion of our sickness is due to messed up thoughts, emotions, and wrong decisions. Remember? That's the soulish self-control. Sometimes we pray for people to be well, but we forget to pray for them to let go of the selfish kind of self-control so that they can be well! I pray that for you today! (and me!)