Revelation 12:11
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death.
Yes, the Lord has done a work in me! It’s the blood of the Lamb over my life, and not loving it so much as to protect it; as to hold on to it. It is what the blood did for me, and not being ashamed of telling it. My life is not my own, it is His and it’s been purchased with a price. Relationship with Jesus Christ and Kingdom-minded outlook allows me to be absolutely more than happy to give it all back. It’s my delight to give it all to Him.
Yes, recently the Lord has been doing a work in me. Something deep, personal, and painful to let go of because of how deeply intertwined I was within this stronghold. After weeks of intentionally, purposefully, and often hourly submitting my flesh to the Lord and His will, fasting and praying, I have experienced freedom, redemption, and empowerment.
The Lord gave me a picture and basically said “okay, you’re free from that….let’s get back to your main focus: me. What will you do with this newfound level of identity and empowerment in me?”
Sanctification of self: for our good, for His Glory.
It’s all about Jesus. He is the Lamb slain before the creation of the earth. Every Old Testament story gives way to Jesus. There’s nothing better, no one greater. It’s why we are here. He made a way for us to have communion with the Father, to have Holy Spirit in us and around us. We have been restored back to our original intended purpose: relationship with God.
It’s not about me, not about money, not about travel, its not about seeing the world or experiencing it. It’s not even about ‘getting to heaven’ or having your problems solved, or solving the world’s problems. It is no good thing that I am or have done because all good things are from Him, by Him, through Him.
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Hell is defined as an eternity separated from God.
Lately I have had a touch of a deep sorrow, a weight of urgency tilting on my soul…with the revelation in my spirit that people are going to hell when they die, but more than that, people are living right now without a relationship with the Father who so desperately wants and loves them. They are separated from Holy Spirit RIGHT NOW, living apart from the Father….which is hell on Earth.
And we have the responsibility, obligation, privilege, to tell people the truth. To love THEM so much, and to not love not our lives, our pride, our dignity, our agendas so much that it gets in the way of people reaching ETERNITY with God. An eternity, a heaven, that starts immediately upon making Jesus Lord and Savior.
I have no time for compromise. I have no time for fear. I have no time for disobedience. I have no time to think things about myself that the Lord doesn’t think about me. We have no time to waste. As believers we need to stop tripping over our own feet and getting in our own way when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
My continuous prayer is to be so in love with Jesus that my heart is overflowing with love for His people. That I would best represent Him, that if I meet someone and if their only chance of meeting Jesus is because I exude HIM….I need to be aware and in love and overflowing.
Sanctification IS a process and everyone is on their own journey. Our new friend John said this: “The oak is no better than the acorn. The goal of the acorn is to become an oak tree, and the goal of the oak tree is to produce acorns. Everyone is in a different place, and don’t look down on someone else because they’re in a different place than you are.”
Flourish. Cultivate. Grow. Submit. Seek.
Even though we aren’t “full grown oaks” yet we still can be so in love with Jesus that we pursue Him and His heart for the person in front of us. Heck, the 12 that walked with Jesus weren’t even saved, didn’t even have Holy Spirit, and they were doing it! We have an advantage because He walks with US!
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Recently we made a new friend, Aga, who decided to join us for a short while in our travels. And you know what? She wasn’t particularly broken. She wasn’t searching for herself or using substances to self medicate or anything particularly obvious. She didn’t ask about our experiences with the Lord or why we would all choose to leave our homes for 11 months. Aga had just quit a job she hated and wanted to travel for a while before she decided what to do next. Simple. She has traveled alone before and joined other groups so this wasn’t something particularly “special” or “spiritual” for her to join us.
Sitting at lunch with Aga (at our favorite place to eat Kaoh Soi in Chaing Mai) I asked the Lord how He saw her and what He wanted to say to her…. because I know for me that if God wants to use me to encounter someone I want to be open, ready and available. I immediately knew He was saying she was brilliant, and she had vision, and He was going to give her an advantage in her new job and she will take the new perspective she gains from this travel into her new career. I spoke this over her and there were no goosebumps, she wasn’t overwhelmed by the word, it was just okay. She’s like yeah, that’s what I want, new perspective. Okay. Cool. That was it. I felt like I wanted to pray but it Just. Didn’t. Happen.
It’s easy to minister to someone who has open wounds. It just is. We look for the tears, the emotions, the response to move your hand or continue a prayer down a certain path. We look for the sore spot to rub on some Jesus-salve as the answer. Anyone who has spent time in ministry and prayer understands this. In the same breath, we all need Jesus. We ALL need Him. There is an empty space inside ourselves that only He can occupy.
What do we do with that?
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Later that day, in Chaing Mai I was walking through the night market alone (ALL alone, praise!). I came across a man who was severely impaired. His cloudy, wrinkled eyeballs were red, he couldn’t blink, and the skin on his face was taut and scarred. He was using a rag to wipe a continuous flow of tears from his eyes. My initial reaction was surprise and shock because I was not expecting to see such a disfigured face all of a sudden very close to mine. I kept walking, and felt the familiar conviction of the Holy Spirit. I prayed that I could encounter this man again, and I felt he needed to be seen, heard, and touched. Maybe the Lord wanted to heal him. Maybe this was it.
I found him again after a few minutes, and after I solomnly watched tourist after tourist encounter him with the same shock I had, and move to avoid him completely, I greeted him and asked his name. I asked what happened to him, where he was from, and what he did before he was hurt. I learned he had been burnt by acid, and was from Chaing Mai. Before I could even start to offer to pray, a friend of his grabbed his arm to help him across the street. I quickly asked if I could pray, but the choppy Thai to English translation in combination with his friends’ urgency to cross the street led me to awkwardly place my hand on his shoulder and say “be healed and blessed in Jesus name” as he walked away. Nothing happened. No miracle, no good feeling, I just spoke Jesus’ name over him (and I do continue to pray someone else encounters him.) It was awkward and I contained the emotion embodied by a shrug. But I was glad to have obeyed the Lord in that moment…..I knew I would have been remorseful if I had not gone back to find him regardless of any immediate or obvious outcome.
The next day Aga again joined our team as we traveled to Pai. We shared food, stories, tents and I was super excited because we would have another chance to “minister”. Maybe I’d be able to pray!
That night at our campfire, we finished our team time activity of sharing testimonies. We had been wanting to do that before Kate, our squad leader, left for another team, and it was our last chance to do so. It was a sweet sweet thing that Aga got to hear what the Lord has done in both Kate and America’s lives.
I realized that hey, I didn’t identify an obvious wound to minister to. I spoke the word to her that the Lord gave me, and it was just okay. I didn’t pray and she didn’t cry or shake or give her life to the Lord right then. She wasn’t a “project” or a “target” or a “mark” we were “selling something” to…
It was natural. It was easy. It was like “this is what we were before. This is what happened in my life…and this is what God has done.” Kate and America glorified the Lord and who He is just by sharing their own experiences.
Then we got into some discussion about Thailand, the sex trade industry, and what God thinks about it all. (PROPS to America for absolutely answering the hard questions with grace, authority, and love).
It was an AMAZING conversation and I just felt so privileged to be there for that and hear how Revelation 12:11 came alive in that moment.
Bill Johnson recently said “obedience contingent on MY understanding makes me lord, not Him.”
I don’t know what happened to that guy in Chaing Mai. I don’t know what will happen with Aga. There was nothing obviously life changing or groundbreaking or revolutionary. But all of my team (who I am SUPER proud of) obeyed the Lord in every way we were asked.
Jesus said “If you love me you will obey my commands”.
That’s all we are to do. Be lovers and have our love cause obedience. It’s not “I’m going to choose to obey you out of obligation to show I love you” It’s “I love you so much that I BECOME obedient through my overwhelming love for you.”
I feel an urgency even more. There is a fire inside that I am so desperate to see catch everything around me. A burning passion to see people experience and know the love of the Father. To see lives changed and souls saved. I am restless for revival. I am desperate for the Presence. I am withholding nothing, saving no dignity or life for myself. I’m sold out, there’s no going back. I want to give it all away, I want to have nothing left by the end of each day I can say I did the MOST with the time that I have been given.
Help me to live this way, Lord. Help me to love this way.
As always, thanks for reading.
XOXO
