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Testing the Hearts of Mankind

Testing the Hearts of Mankind

Tribulation is coming upon the world. For some they will abide in rest because they’ve enter the true sanctuary of the presence of God. Revelation 3:10 Others, still needing purification from the lusts of the world, will encounter further purging, refining, and testing, so God can move in. Proverbs 17:3, Revelation 2:16

Your circumstances test and reveal your heart for out of your heart springs the issues of life. If you circumstances are of the true peace; then you’re entering into the Kingdom of God. If they are of unrest; you are being tested in whom you serve. Let your circumstances show YOU your heart then fully seek and turn to God’s wisdom. Some will try to run and hide from the turmoil, but they cannot because it comes from within. Others will cry out to the true God and He will answer and lead them on the narrow path of truth into His sanctuary of peace.

The purpose of the tribulation is to lead people to deep repentance from the powers of this world (see below) that control them and drive them into death. God is life. To desire God to govern your mind is to embrace eternal life. In His love, He is purging the powers contrary to His perfect love from your life because they destroy you and others, and hurt Him, for He cares for you.

Thus, some of you are going through a significant testing in your circumstances to reveal whether you truly know and trust the true God. During these trying times of your soul; will you cling to the God of truth and choose His truth over the worldly wisdom and the golden calves of mankind’s creation? As the refining/purging fire comes what will it reveal in your spirit? One clinging to truth or one clinging to the pit of lies? 1 Corin 3:13

The Pit Within

During this time people will come face to face with the pit within them. Within the souls of men is a pit. It’s the shadow of death from a severance in the love bond between them and their Father of Light. Some have been coming out of that pit and walking into the light thus into God’s love, others, in spiritual blindness, cling to it to their destruction. Jeremiah 6:19

People try to run from this internal pit of darkness by doing and clinging to all sorts of things to convince themselves it isn’t there (addictions, religion, busyness, contrived self-exaltation). Yet, at times it surfaces and shows its terror.

The pit sucks any aspect of love from a person’s life and leaves them empty and alone. It creates hypocrisy as they try to flee it in any way possible; even by acts they know are destructive. People are trying to escape and run from this internal darkness and yet in their trying they push into the powers of ruin, thus they are trying to smother death with death. When they feed these powers, they are keeping their souls bound to the pit they are trying to escape. Though God longs to be united to them; they have been imprisoned to serving the lust of the world because their love for it. Thus a pit of darkness and emptiness remains in them.

The pit is full of lies, fear, and pain. It’s where the power of ruins have their anchor in people’s souls. They have to be uprooted; so God can abide within.

Psalm 75:10 All the horns of the wicked I will also cut off, But the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.”

10 Powers (horns) of Ruin

  1. Pride
  2. Flesh worship; images created by world
  3. Hypocrisy
  4. Fear
  5. Dishonor/Oppression/Belittling
  6. Personal vengeance/blame
  7. Lust
  8. Self-power, control
  9. Judging/Criticalness/Condemnation
  10. Covetiveness

These torment the soul. Founded on lies, they are the powers that drive us toward death; what Christ came to destroy with His light/truth. The fullness of Christ in us destroys this pit because He is the consummation of love. This fullness is upon us to be received. When His liquid light of truth and pure love implode that place, then death is destroyed in us forever.

Hebrews 2:14-15 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Only God can show us the depth, expanse and power of these forces within us because we each have our own network of lies intertwined and twisted since childhood. Thus, the path of freedom entails a very personal interaction with our Creator. Seek their penetration to be expelled from your life, by the strength of God, down to the last residue clinging to the sides of your soul. He came to cleanse your vessel, let Him. To walk out of this pit is to forsake these powers and all related and connected to them.

If you are facing this pit, cry out to the God of truth. Forsake all artificial remedies of the world. It’s only covering death with death; as the lust of this world is the lust for death. Seek the eternal Light. Come to know the mountain of God; the mountain of truth established in unfailing love. Serve no other “truth” or wisdom but seek to serve the wisdom and love beyond this world yet for this world. Christ will not only deliver you, but will fill you with Himself; the most incredible light of truth and love. John 8:32 Be clear who you serve; and there are only two choices the God of truth or the god of lies and deceit. Pray to know the difference.

I’ve told you these things beforehand, so you may endure with fortitude. God is with you; there is tremendous power in trusting the living God. Cry out to Him for He cares for you; but you must receive Him for it’s the nature of love to be received and given.


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Two Kingdoms: Where do You Abide?

Two Kingdoms:  Where do You Abide?

There are two kingdoms your soul can abide in; one of this earth, one of heaven; one of man’s wisdom, one of God’s wisdom; one of darkness, one of light; one of death, one of life; one of lies, one of truth. John 8:44, James 3:15-18 One kingdom is governed by evil and the other by righteousness. 1 John 5:19 The kingdoms are each governed by their respective kings;  Satan, Father of lies represented by following our will separate from God, and Christ, the Truth represented by following God’s will.

Whichever kingdom we seek life from is the one we dwell in; life meaning purpose, value, peace, joy, rest, happiness, and love. We seek life from them by listening to their messages (what we consider wisdom) and acting on them. Both kingdoms promise these aspects of abundant life, but one’s ways returns void, and the other’s fulfilled.

We dwell in whichever kingdom based on which one we have cultivated faith in. Faith is knowing a concept, believing it and acting on it with the hopes of fulfillment of what we desire.

These two kingdoms are represented throughout the Bible. From the beginning God made a clear distinction between them and the results of our choice …

Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;

Which kingdom’s path we choose to learn of and travel determines the results of our lives, one leads to curses and the other to blessings.

The kingdom of darkness engulfs this world. Satan governs this earth and all the man-made established systems of this earth; economics, politics, financial, education, health, religions, media, and so on. His messaging and instruction of his kingdom are EVERYWHERE full of promises of life, yet never delivering but always creating the hope. He promotes partial truth making it a twisted lie. As a result, people sacrifice, strive and become a slave to many empty philosophies in hope that one day they will find the life they seek.

Conversely, the kingdom of light isn’t dominant in this world, yet. But we can abide in it, if we seek. We are born into the mind of the kingdom of darkness, but if we seek, we can move into the kingdom of light by the knowledge of truth. We have to seek because the kingdom of darkness is consuming. Matthew 6:33 As we seek the truth of the kingdom of light, we know it, believe it and thus act on it. Bit by bit, our faith is transferred to the kingdom of light as our lives bear the fruit of it and we realize it’s where true life abides.  As the kingdom of darkness fades from our lives so does all it created; death, pain, suffering, hardship, unrest, worry, fear and afflictions.

Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

To abundantly aid us in our seeking, God gave us the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, to teach us all things about walking in the kingdom of light down to the very details of our lives so in every way we can abide in His Kingdom of life. We simply have to make time to engage Him, which leads me to my next point.

How do we leave the kingdom of darkness and enter into the kingdom of light?

From the Holy Spirit, we learn to transition into the kingdom of light in two main ways, two ways that work hand-in-hand.

  1. Each day we seek the Holy Spirit’s instruction through the Bible with a desire to know the truth, thus to know God as He is. We let Him be our perfect teacher as God gave us Him to be.
  2. We listen and follow the Holy Spirit’s counsel in our lives. The Holy Spirit will tell/prompt us to do a certain act. A voice in our head will say, do it this way. At first, we will ignore or justify away the counsel and do what we’ve always done or follow someone else’s counsel. We’ll see the results and realized we should have followed that still small voice. But another day we’ll heed that voice, and witness the perfection of its guidance. We are like an octopus with a vast number of tentacles attached to the kingdom of darkness, but as we listen and follow the Holy Spirit each one is detached and our faith moves to God’s truth.

As we start engaging the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, we will see the perfection of His counsel and it will increase our faith to listen more carefully and follow. His voice is of truth, love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, and contrary to the world’s wisdom.

The door out of the prison of darkness has been opened, so that we can be free. It’s the truth that sets us free; freedom begins with our beliefs. Seek the truth from the One you’ve been given to teach you truth, the Holy Spirit, and begin to enter the kingdom of light, the only place where you will find true life.


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Preparing for God’s Calling

Preparing for God’s Calling

 

If you’ve been following my posts, Wilderness Tests – God’s Care, Perspective Adjustments, then you know I’ve been going through what I call wilderness tests. (Wilderness because I feel like I’m out there in the wide open with nothing to cling to but God – and yet He is everything what I’m I worried about? And tests because I feel my trust is being tested at very deep levels within me.)

God often uses my dreams to reveal the depths of my heart, and I’m getting some deep insight during this trial. My dreams cause me to face what I’m really feeling, because my rational brain knows better. They have been exposing the depth of what I really think and feel so that it can be addressed with the Truth. They can be like an interpretive drama of what is happening in my emotions.

Here is another one . . .

A friend was putting together a Bible class for children. I asked if she could use my help.  She asked me to prepare some pages (on graph paper) with certain phrases written on them. The phrases were to be written in different colored markers. Some of the phrases were to be taken out of certain books. Sounds easy enough. There were other women helping out with the same task. As I started out I had all my supplies but not the markers. Once I got the markers, then all the sudden the graph paper was missing. Once I got the graph paper, then the books were missing. I couldn’t get it all together to get the task done. The other women seemed to have no problem getting it all together. They kept handing my friend completed pages, when I hadn’t written one phrase. Why was I having such a problem? I couldn’t figure it out. What’s wrong with me? Time started to run out and the children started showing up as the class was about to begin, and I hadn’t prepared anything! My friend didn’t seem too worried about it, but I felt horrible that I hadn’t made any progress with such a simple task. Then I woke up.

As I asked about this dream the next morning, I felt it was related to my calling.  My passion is to help others to cultivate a relationship with God that is deep, meaningful, passionate, and real.  I felt God had given me the next steps for moving forward. All the elements seemed to be in place. I felt I knew what I needed to do, but yet it seemed to go nowhere. What seemed to be an easy task ended up not really ever taking off as I expected it to.  Yet, others around me seem to be carrying on their callings with no problem.  This dream showed me how deep down I feel about my circumstances. The elements seem to be there but there isn’t much movement forward from my point of view. Why? What is going on? In my rational brain I know that God is in control that He is preparing me and I need to relax and trust, but deep down I was feeling a bit “concern” about the whole thing as my dream revealed.

This is what God told me about this “concern” I was having. It isn’t about you “efforting” your way through. I know your heart, willingness, and passion, I put them in you to drive and focus you in your life. BUT I’m the One to lead, guide, prepare and equip you for what I call you to do. You question your ability and sometimes your path to accomplish what seems straight forward because you don’t see the “successes”. But you are right where I want you to be.  Don’t give up on your passion because it isn’t happening in the way you thought. My ways are not your ways. The preparation of the person/leader is one of the most important parts to my callings. Too often people want to jump ahead. Resist that urge and trust me that I will guide you and lead you perfectly. The vision may be planted in your heart (however fuzzy), but it’s I who determine each step. You want to be there now, but I’m taking you along the perfect path at the perfect pace. Trust me. You are my workmanship. It’s not your work but mine. I will finish what I started. Trust me. Don’t you trust that I can guide you? Prepare you? Look at your past. My grace abounds toward you. You need to let go of your expectations of how it should be working out and trust me in this area. Just keep your eyes on Me – seeking my kingdom and my righteousness. This is all I ask of you.

As I was telling a friend, she said God has me “under construction” – I thought that was well said.  We want to jump ahead to the doing, because that’s what we often put our identity in, though we shouldn’t. We need to be patient as God prepares our heart, mind and spirit.

We want to be at the finish line now. But the truth of the matter is we will always be a work in progress in this life. We will always need to be dependent upon God. Therefore, we need to learn to trust and let go of our expectations of how things should be happening and trust His perfect counsel. We don’t see the big picture as He does. He moves His children along at the perfect way at the perfect pace. God spoke to me about this area of my life a week ago as I wrote in Perspective Adjustments. I got it on one level, but this truth needs to go deeper until it’s truly mine and that is a process.

Ephesians 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

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Wilderness Tests – God’s Care

Wilderness Tests – God’s Care

 

The other morning after nine hours of sleep, I woke up emotionally spent. In my dream, I constantly yelled at everyone around me. They weren’t listening, and I was beyond frustrated. Despite how loud I yelled, they remained unfazed with my concerns and needs (probably because I was being very obnoxious).

When I woke up, I was exhausted from all that yelling. I rarely yell, so I’m not use to it. It’s draining! Does that happen to you – not the yelling part 🙂 – but waking up and feeling the residue of the emotions you had in your dream? I do. Every time it fascinates me how real our dreams are to our bodies.

My dreams often unveil the depths of my subconscious. In them, I face fears, un-dealt with emotions, and desires.

This dream revealed a question deep in my soul, which on a conscious level I didn’t question because I knew the answer – does God truly care for me? In the past, I’ve struggled with this issue because of experiences in my childhood, and often we transfer our childhood experiences with others to God. . .

In my younger years, I often felt that others didn’t care about me; that my concerns and needs didn’t matter. Looking back, I recognize the experiences in childhood that lead to this ill-belief. It’s a very painful thought to own, even some of the time. The reality was people did care, but at certain times my reality was they didn’t. Therefore, sometimes when situations aren’t going as expected, the enemy plays on my past and I question if God really cares for me . . . am I worth caring for?

Sometime ago when those old emotions started to arise, God said very clearly, I care. At His words, a smile danced across my face and my soul was at peace. At that moment, I knew God cared very deeply for me. It was a powerful moment I’ll never forget. Now, I know I only question His care when the raw unfiltered emotions of a child, who wasn’t processing reality correctly, are being triggered. It’s wise to understand why we feel what we do, because most of the negativity comes from past experiences where we didn’t process our emotions correctly.

But because of my past – this “caring” issue is tender in my soul. . .

The reason this dream came up is because of where I’m at right now. I’m going through a wilderness trial. The trial’s purpose is to test my trust in God in the areas that are the hardest for me, and to test how firmly I will stand on His truth when it’s challenged. In these trials, there is a combination of giants (seemingly tough situations) and lies. In the trial, because it’s challenging by nature, we can get weak and vulnerable and that is when our internal enemy strikes with lies.

The only real weapon this enemy has is lies. They aren’t very powerful unless we believe the lies as truth, then they become incredibly powerful. We are attacked in our thoughts in those areas that are vulnerable, for example, God’s care for us. Yet, if we reject the lies, hold onto the truth, then we can stand unwavering. When we truly trust God, then that is ultimate freedom. In this freedom is where He wants to be, thus the testing. God wants us to know without a doubt who He is and who He is to us and that is why we have these tests.

These tests aren’t for God to know my heart because He already knows it, but for me to know. I feel I’m going through this trial at this time because God has taught me so much and is preparing me for His plans that lay ahead. I need to know where I stand. I need to know that my trust is truly in Him and nothing else. It’s like in school where you are given exams to test what you’ve learned before you move onto the next level. These wilderness tests often include being presented with giants as well as lies that reflect issues close to our hearts. Our response to them is everything, because our beliefs reflected in our response are everything.

We can know God’s truth in our head. But do we know it in our heats – where it matters? When characteristics of God are related to a painful past, it can make deeply believing in His promises more difficult. For example, as a child if we are neglected, abused, or abandoned, then it can be difficult to trust that God will always be there, He’ll never leave, and He truly loves and cares.

I thought I knew that He cared for me. But going through this wilderness trial, I sometimes feel Jesus is asleep in the boat while I’m in the middle of the storm. Why is He sleeping, doesn’t He care? In part that is the nature of the trial – in the silence of His voice or actions do we still believe in His promises? Deep down I started to question – doesn’t He care? Why don’t I see His deliverance? If He cared wouldn’t He deliver me now? My internal enemy was trying to plant seeds exploiting issues of the past. Believing God cares is essential, because then we can truly trust Him. I needed to know He always deeply cares therefore it’s put to the test. . . was I going to give into the lies or stand firm on His truth?

I chose to stand on His promises and silence the pounding lies.

A thought, a lie, comes into our minds, and if we are equipped with the truth and connected to God, then we can kill it. If we don’t have the truth and aren’t connected, our minds will feed that lie, it will grow, we’ll act on it, and create havoc in our emotions and lives. In the wilderness, Jesus quickly dispelled the lies presented to Him. Jesus KNEW the truth. It was His truth, so He stood firm.

In preparation for this wilderness trial, God told me 1. to keep my focus on Him 2. Hold onto the truth 3. Be ready for certain lies that pertain to areas close to my heart. He forewarned me that I would be challenged in what I’ve learned. If we are listening, God will warn us – yet even with the warning it still can be a challenge because it hits our most vulnerable spots – that is why it’s a test.

If we do hold onto the truth, our trust and faith grow immensely. The truth is our shield, we are to cling to it and not give lies a foothold in our thoughts. Yet, even if we do start to fall, His mercy is more than enough to carry us through.

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