Slave To Debt

Jason and I have not always been Christians. For years after coming to Christ we didn't even know what Kingdom finance was. We are still paying for our irresponsibility. When you have debt you become a slave to that debt. Neither one of us carry a credit card with us anymore. We have learned to pay with cash or pay it off when the bill comes. But even as we have begun to live and handle our finances the way God desires we are still a slave to debt, because of our past mistakes.


God's desire is to restore. He sent His Son to die on a cross to restore what was lost in the garden. He is willing and capable of restoring marriages and families. He desires to have a bride (the church) who is restored to Himself. He also wants to restore our finances. I'm not talking about the prosperity gospel that so many preach on today. God wants to bless His children, yes, but we do not serve the Holy of Holy, King of King to receive things. We serve because we love Him.

The Bible says in Romans 13:8 "let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another..." Christ came to die on the cross to set us free. He is a God of restoration, and I believe over finances too. After all, everything is His anyway, we are only given stewardship over it. He lets us have our houses, cars, clothes, food, etc., and especially here in America we are blessed beyond compare.

Debt is a shameful thing. I don't say that to bring shame to those who have it, almost all of us do, I say it because that is how it makes you feel. We are blessed to have an income that covers our bills but I have been in the place where I didn't know how we were going to pay for things like food because of all the bills we had. Like a hoard of locust "debt" comes in to every aspect of your life. You argue with your spouse over finances (been there, done that); you argue with your kids because you are stressed over how you are going to pay for their sports fees or whatever else they need or want money for; you work 50-60 hours a week at one or 2 jobs, perhaps even both spouses are working that much and because you are working so much you are never there for your kids. Forget vacations, because that would just add to the debt and take away from the money coming in. Because you are working so hard it begins to affect your health; high blood pressures, insomnia, acid reflex, and various other ailments sneak in.

Jason and I have experienced first hand what the locust of debt can do to a family. But great news! God promises "to restore the years the locusts have eaten" (Joel 2:25); not just restore but look at verse 26  "you will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed." Why does He desire to do this? The answer is in verse 27 "Then you will know... that I am the Lord your God and there is no other". He desires to restore our finances as a testimony of who He is. Not by our hands, but by His miraculous provision.

That doesn't mean we are to just sit idly by and let Him do all the work. God does not like a sluggard, but we will let Him provide the right job for Jason, so he can serve God and walk in obedience. We will seek Him together in prayer and let Him provide the debt repayment plan, and we will worship and serve as we wait for God to multiply the work of our hands and to provide miraculous provision to erase this mountain of debt.

We are standing next to the mountain, standing on the Word of God, with faith that God restores and saying to that mountain, "MOVE!"

 It is so easy for the enemy to come in, and he has, and say, "this is going to take too long. You deserve to have what you want and everyone else charges it so why not you." Well I say to the enemy that I have the best Daddy in the universe and if He thinks I need it then He will provide it, not some creditor.

We refuse to be slaves to this debt anymore. We used to think that we had to be out of debt in order to step out in our ministry and go, but God desires to do something else. We are to step out in obedience to Him and let Him do the restoring of our finances. We are believing God for a $50,000 miraculous provision; to not just move a mountain but uproot and destroy it. When I look at our budget and crunch the numbers it will take 4-5 years for this mountain to move. This mountain is not going to move by our hands. It will move by the hand of God, leading us, giving us wisdom, and by miraculous provision. God is a God of restoration.

Stop Preparing and Grab Hold

I had a very brief conversation with someone this week about revival and it reminded me of something I wrote in December 2012. It is still so pertinent for today even though circumstances have changed. For instance, LifeChange Church has been in it's new home almost a year now and we are slowly growing. God is still doing amazing things in the lives of our small congregation. So many times I feel like the church (the whole church, not just LifeChange)  is right there on the precipice of revival yet only a few seem to catch hold of it. So many others around the world have similar feelings and frustrations. God wants revival, we say we want revival, but revival also comes with a price. I think that the reason we don't see the fire storm of revival is because too many in the body of Christ are not willing to pay that price. We are too comfortable in our nice houses, with our nice cars, and our seemingly perfect families, and we don't want to sacrifice any of it. But Christ says, "he who loses his life gains it". I believe God isn't going to just pour out revival, His presence is there waiting ,but we have to reach for it and grab hold of it.

Here is a portion of that previous blog, I felt as though God had something to say to the Church that day and He is still saying it today.

Prepare the Way For Revival

When I first started this blog, it was to share our story in hopes to encourage someone else and to share the journey we felt God was taking us on. Years ago, when we were still very broken God gave both Jason and I an audible word in a church service; we both heard it. That word was, "Go". God hasn't given us a clear picture of what that means. He has been revealing , however, that "go" doesn't always mean a moving of us, it can mean a releasing of us and a move of Him...

... He started with showing me a passage in Come Away My Beloved "Behold time is short. Be not entangled in the things of this world, for they are transitory. Be not over-concerned as to thy personal needs, for your Heavenly Father knoweth what ye have need of and He will supply. But let thine uppermost concern be to carry out My will and purpose for thy life, to be sensitve to My guidance, and to keep thine ear toward Heaven. Miss anything, but don't miss My Voice. Other voices may introduce disharmony, but My voice will always bring peace to thy heart and clarity to thy thinking. For ye shall hear My voice behind thee saying: This is the way, walk ye in it, when you turnest to the left or to the right."

Then, He spoke through His Word. Phil 3:13-21 - Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Join with others in following my example, brothers and take note of those who live according to this pattern we gave you. For as I have often told you before and now say with tears, many live as enemies to the Cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that we will be like His glorious body.

Then he spoke to the church through my pen, I didn't even know what I was writing until after 

 "How far you are away from My will. I need you to listen to my voice. I have equipped you to push out the voice of the enemy so why are you listening to him? My tears are falling for you because you are not listening. I am about to move in a powerful way, I cannot have you in My way, but I need a willing heart that is ready and willing to be used. You need to be able to die to yourself, so you can carry My will to the nations. Put yourself aside. I did not give you a spirit of timidity so stop being timid and fearful. Quit looking at who you were, look only forward toward My Goal. You want revival; So why do you keep getting in My way? I have hungered to come to My church, to be near you, yet you have pushed Me away. Do not be as hypocrites. If you hunger for My Presence, then LET GO! Why are you making it harder than it is. It is simple, step forward. It is not a journey, it is one step only, into My presence. But don't just step there, stay there. Walk with Me; be My feet on earth; be My hands on earth; be My voice on earth. When you can step aside and let My will take control in a radical, bold way then and only then can I come and bring revival to My church."

Breaking Free The Veil

We had a wonderful speaker at church yesterday, Jay West, who is a traveling minister, author and motivational speaker He shared some amazing testimonies, but the thing that stood out the most to me was something that I have struggled with my entire life. It actually began with something Pastor Ross had said, "don't be careful" and Jay took it from there adding, "Be real, don't put on a veil". I would like to say that I am a very open person, and I thought that I had dealt with all my "veils", until yesterday.

I have shared in my early blogs about what it was like to be a military spouse. I had a switch that I would turn on so I could function as a mother and run the household when Jason was gone. It was also a switch that I turned on when things were not good in our marriage. I would just take a deep breath, suck it up, and do what I needed to do without any emotion. As I grew in my faith God began to reveal to me how dangerous that switch was. I used it, I thought, to protect myself, but ultimately all it did was isolate me. God didn't want me to use my switch anymore; I needed to be vulnerable. Man was that scary. That was almost 3 years ago. 

Lately, I have been in a bit of a funk. I have been struggling with writing, and in prayer and devotions with hearing from God. It hasn't been a good couple of days for Jason and I either. I knew something wasn't quite right and I kept pushing through in running after God, because I know that He is always there even if I don't feel Him or hear Him. I just couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. I was under attack, I could see glimpses of where the enemy was, and I thought I was fighting him off, but I still couldn't shake it. 

Just recently I wrote about judgement. I realized yesterday, that I had become careful; somewhere, sometime, someone had placed seeds of doubt in me and I had become careful. I quit looking at my life through God's eyes and started looking at it through the eyes of others. I had put on a veil and turned on the switch. I can't even remember all the words or who said them that triggered this attack, but I began to question how others saw me. I began to ask myself, "Am I where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing?" Jason and I are teaching a class on Power Evangelism on Thursday nights and Robby Dawkins author of (Do what Jesus Did )says in the videos, "not all of our thoughts are our own." I don't know why it took me so long to recognize that those were not my thoughts, they were put there by the enemy to derail me from what God has for me.

I didn't take offense to the words that were spoken to me but the enemy did use those words to cause me to take on the judgement. As I wrote a few weeks ago, "His (our Heavenly Daddy) opinion is all that matters." I was writing that for myself, to remind me. Today, I take a stand against the enemy's schemes and paraphrase Romans 12:2. 

I will not conform to the pattern of this world or the opinions and judgement of others. I will be transformed by the renewing of my mind through Christ Jesus. No longer will I put on a veil and be careful and if I try I pray the Holy Spirit will convict me to rip it off. I want to be about my Father's business and some may find that offensive because God doesn't fit into a nice. neat, little box. Sometimes His work looks messy and disorganized; sometimes it's a little strange, and a lot of times it calls for some risk, but I will walk one footstep at a time in obedience to His will. 

My son, pay attention to what I say,

turn your ear to my words.

keep them within your heart;

for they are life to those who find them

and health to one's whole body.

Above all else, guard your heart, 

for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:20-23

Are We Raising Our Children With a Spirit of Adoption?

Are we raising our children to have a spirit of adoption or are we raising them with an orphaned spirit?

That question came to me one morning during my devotion time with my youngest daughter, Rebecca. We have been reading Compelled By Love by Heidi Baker. In the book Heidi describes an orphan spirit as one "that causes people to shrink back, peer around corners, and not believe that there is room on their Father God's lap." How many of us felt that way when we first came to Christ? Perhaps you still feel this way. We felt like we had to behave a certain way in order for Him to bless us. Where did we get that idea?

The Bible says in Ephesians 1:4-5 "for He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will." As adults so many of us who grew up out of the church, and even some who grew up in the church, associate God with how our parents were. We may not have known loving parents and even if we did, we were surrounded by the ideology of the world.

In my last blog I wrote about expectations; do you think God has expectations for us? I believe He doesn't. He only desires for us to love Him. "Yet while we were still sinners, God demonstrated His love for us" -Romans 5:8.

"Orphans compete with each other, always comparing and worrying that there is not enough, worrying that as God blesses someone else, that we will miss out. Sons and daughters of God who are pure in heart give preference to each other, knowing that there is always enough in the Father's house" -Compelled By Love

How do your children behave, or better yet how do you behave? Do you see the comparing and worrying in your life and the lives of your children or do we approach things as if God has an open kitchen?

When my girls bring friends home, I tell them to help themselves to the pantry if they are hungry. God wants us to come to Him that way. Everything in His house is ours, we are "adopted into sonship"; we have an inheritance. If parents have so much influence in how people view God, do your children understand that they have access to you? Are you available to your kids? When they are struggling with hurts, sins, anger, etc., can they approach you without fear? Are they able to come to you with anything, knowing that you will not judge and condemn them? If we call on the name of Jesus then we represent Him to those around us, including our children. Are we loving them and guiding them the way that God loves and guides us? Are you quick to forgive them when they fall and to forget the past transgressions? Are you gently leading them in the right direction, lovingly pursuing them when they run away, and waiting anxiously for their return when they become a prodigal? There is nothing that we as parents go through that God himself has not gone through with His children. Just look at Moses and His insecurities, the Israelites and their rebelliousness, David and his strong will, Peter, and his impulsiveness, and the disciples and their lack of faith. It's all in His word.

God never gave up on His children so why do we give up on ours? We either lower our standards and say, "that's just the way they are" or we place such high expectations on them they could never hope to please us. I choose to "train them in the way THEY should go". Teaching them to love who God created them to be, encouraging them in their God given gifts, and  speaking life into them and blessings over them. My children have confidence in who they are to me and who they are in God. They know that nothing they do can ever separate them from either God or myself.

 I'm going to end with this passage from Heidi's book.
"After fourteen years of ministering to children in the streets and villages of Mozambique, I am beginning to understand more about the spirit of adoption. God is looking for spiritual mothers and fathers who know who they are in Him, who will go into the darkness, look for lost children (spiritual orphans) of all ages, and bring them home to the Father's house. Our attempts to minister to others may be feeble to some, but they are precious to God. We may minister like a three - year - old drawing their first picture, but we try as hard as we can, and with great joy we scribble our picture for God. We may mess up or rip the page. But when God our Father looks at what we have done for Him, He says, 'It's amazing, it's fabulous!' If God had a fridge in heaven our pictures would be on it"

Expectations

So I have had this post in the works for a week and a half now. One reason is because this is an important topic and often times a huge stronghold in peoples lives that the enemy does not want to come down. Another is because God has been continually showing my more on this subject. What sparked it was a quote that I heard a week and a half ago, "expectations are offense waiting to happen". It was one of those moments like in the cartoon when a light bulb flashes on over the head of the character. Let me begin by saying I used to get easily offended, especially by those close to me. I know I have overcame it but if someone were to ask me how I didn't know what to tell them other than the power of God. When I saw that quote thought I knew that it wasn't necessarily that I overcame a spirit of offense, but the root was my expectations. The Bible even gives an example, I read it in my devotion last week and then my pastor actually used this passage in his sermon yesterday.

2 Kings 5:1-14
 In summary, it is the story of Naaman, who has leprosy and is told by a servant that the prophet Elisha can heal him. You see the expectations starting in verse 10 when Elisha tells Naaman to go wash himself 7 times in the Jordan river to receive his healing. then in verse 11 Naaman reveals what he had expected. "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy." It made him angry when Elisha did not live up to his expectations and he would have missed the healing except for his servants pointing out to him that if Elisha had told him to do something great he would have done it. (vs 13.) When Naaman humbled himself and obediently went to the dirty Jordan river and washed 7 times, he was healed. I find it interesting how pride and expectations are so closely linked.

How many of your relationships are affected by your expectations? We form preconceived ideas of the way certain relationships should be and when that is not reality we get offended. What are your expectations for your spouses, your children, your leaders, your friends? I know early on in our marriage my expectations for Jason did nothing but hurt our relationship; it made Christmas, my birthday, Valentine's day, and our anniversary miserable. It heightened my anxiety because things around me were not how I wanted them to be. Sound like control to you? I wanted Jason to be this man that I had dreamed up in my head, I thought I knew what I needed. My expectations were hindering what God wanted to do in Jason and me. Like Naaman, if it wasn't the way "I thought" it should be, I got mad. God's ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8).

We are called to love as Christ loved - unconditionally. If we get offended when someone doesn't behave or do something we expected is that loving them unconditionally?

I believe expectations are a symptom of our desire to control, and when we desire to control, it tells God we don't trust him. Like Naaman we could miss a move of God if we continue to hold onto expectations. Not only that but letting those expectations turn into and offense hinders the blessing and move of God in our lives and those around us. You want true change to happen in your relationships, look at them through God's eyes instead of your preconceived expectations of how you think they should be.  Don't let offense take root because you are too proud to let go of your expectations.

The Only Judgement

From Come Away My Beloved by Francis J. Roberts

"O Lord, what shame that You should need to beg us thus! 

Better that others might find us unavailable because of our occupation with You, 

rather than for us to be slow to come,

so dull to hear, so cold of heart, so indolent (lazy) of soul."

I have spent the past several months running after God like I never have before. Getting to know Him intimately and letting Him know me. Yes, He already knows me, but there is power in it when you confess with your mouth. God has given me visions, words, and I have even felt His embrace. The love that I have felt from and for My Daddy is indescribable. To worship and to soak in His presence has been my desire. He has been pouring into me and I have kept my eyes open for opportunities that He puts in front of me. I have put my priorities on God, my husband, my children, and those God is calling me to minister to. But those that find me "unavailable" are unable to see the heart. ( "...The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" 1 Samuel 16:7)

I do not want God's heart to ever have to longingly beg for my attention. In today's worldliness we are pulled in so many directions and we have so many demands for our time. What do we choose? What get's neglected? I would rather be unavailable to others than to neglect my Daddy and the work of my Father's business. There is a great cost in doing so.

The eyes and hearts of the world, and at times even the church, do not see and understand. His word says, "do not judge...for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged." Matt. 7:1-2. Oh, how quick we in the church are to judge. If it is not our way, it is wrong. I have seen this type of judgement, I have been on the receiving end, and I have even given it out. Jesus even experienced it after healing on the Sabbath in John 7. He went against the status quo and followed the leading of His Father in almost everything He did.

We cannot see what is happening in someone's heart and often times, what God is doing is outside of the norms. If someone has pulled back from serving in the church to devote more time to seeking intimacy with the Lord, who are we to judge them? Jesus, in John 7:24 says, "stop judging by mere appearances, but instead, judge correctly." 

I am finding that as I grow closer to God and the more I step into His will the more judgement comes against me. But the ONLY judgement worthy of my attention is that of my Beloved. People may not  understand because I don't talk to them as much as I used to or because I'm doing things differently, but I want to be about my Father's business. I don't want to be slow to respond or dull to hear. I want to be so in-love with my Beloved and so close to Him that I lose myself. HIS opinion is all that matters, for He alone knows my heart. My only desire is to be in His presence and when the day of "true" judgement comes to stand in front of Him and hear Him say, "Well done, My good and faithful friend". 

Will you join the army?

I began writing a blog this morning about how leaders need to be transparent but had to stop and help my daughter with her research paper she is doing. Before returning to my finish writing my blog I was interrupted with news about our friends in South Sudan.(here is the article http://tinyurl.com/kump3qm ). God often wants to interrupt our lives but do we let Him? I can think of nothing else but our friends and the children that they have in their care. As I try to write, I am brought back to thoughts of them and cant write my original blog. I try to catch up on other news, and find that it is all so trivial in the context of life. Here is a family that have given up their lives to serve our Heavenly Father. To hear of a 16 year old and 23 year old who is willing to stay in the line of fire to bring the love of Jesus to a nation and yet we sit in our warm homes, with full bellies, and complain about what we don't have. Since I first heard about the turmoil in South Sudan I have tried everyday to find current news about the conflict so I could pray specifically for my friends, yet in American media there is very little talk of it. Check out MSN or CNN and it will take you a while to find an article about the fighting in South Sudan but only seconds to hear the latest on Duck Dynasty. Seriously? Has America really become that shallow and self-centered. I can confess that I don't like watching the news anymore, its depressing, but with everything happening in South Sudan and the fact that this hits close to home I have realized how important it is for the body of Christ to be aware of what is happening in our world. We are warriors. God equipped us and armed us with weapons not of this world (2 Cor. 10:4) to help and battle for those who cannot battle for themselves. We are commanded to take care of the widows and the orphans (James 1:27), and that is what my friends in South Sudan are doing. They are on the front lines, but that does not excuse us from the battle. It is time for the church in America to wake up and quit worrying about Duck Dynasty or Miley Cyrus but open their eyes to the broken and hurting world wide. There is a song by Casting Crown with these lyrics -

 "What if the armies of the Lord

 picked up and dusted of their swords

vowed to set the captives free

and not let Satan have one more"

The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 7:14 "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

The church in America needs to humble itself, ask for forgiveness of our selfish ways, throw off the gluttony, the covetousness, the division, and the judgmental attitudes; turn from the distractions and turn toward God.

Our pastor preached a little on this yesterday at http://lifechangeomaha.com/. The world is in turmoil; America is in turmoil, yet we as the church want to remain blind. God desires to heal the nations but it will take an "army of the Lord" to "humble themselves and pray and seek His face" for that to happen. Will you join that army? Are you willing to give whatever it takes to see His will done here on earth as it is in Heaven?