Two Words

Post by Mindy: Shortly upon arriving in Africa God laid on my heart these two words: unity and honor.  He highlighted how many people are divided in their core beliefs and have turned their eyes to man but that He wants to bring unity back to His Church.  HE is the core and many have lost sight of that.  It breaks His heart that many have taken their eyes off Him and instead have let the waves toss them to and fro and have been carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and by craftiness in deceitful schemes (Ephesians 4:14).  It breaks His heart to see many “chewing up and spitting out” their own family members (look at this from a natural and kingdom perspective).  He sees many churches that have been reinvented and become less dependent on Him and the power of the Holy Spirit and more dependent on man’s cleverness and puffed up knowledge.  The gospel is pretty simple – we have a personal Savior!  When you’re convicted of that, you won’t put aside the gospel for your own life or another’s.  Instead, you will lay down your life for HIM!  In Ephesians 4 Paul says, “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.  God is waiting for His Church to attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God so that we grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.”  Speaking from my own heart, I desire to be a vessel for Him and want to play a part in bringing unity back to His Church.  God has been healing wounds within my own family which has kept us from being in full unity.  He is helping me to “adjust my lenses” to see more of His heart.  He is teaching me how to better honor my husband, Josh, simply by opening the eyes to my heart so I can see and love Josh the way He sees and loves Josh.  I am definitely not perfect at it, but as I focus more on the Father’s heart (staying in Him and not just around Him) and humble myself before Him, He continues to chisel away at the rough edges.  It is vital to focus on the first and greatest commandment because without love we gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).  Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength.  People define love in many ways, but the only love that transforms lives and brings true freedom is the love of the Father!  He showed us what this looks like through the life of Jesus.

He continues to speak into my identity, as only He can, and is helping me to view others in the same light that He sees them.  We are to honor the potential of who someone is and not focus on their sin or faults.  When a person messes up they usually know it.  We don’t need to point out people’s shortcomings.  We need to love them to Christ.  The Holy Spirit has been convicting me of ways in which I have been dishonoring to my husband and not loving Him the way Jesus taught me to.  I haven’t been ignorant of this, but the Lord is pointing me to the source of my hurts and why I react a certain way when my buttons get pushed.  He is pulling the weeds out by their roots and replacing them with fresh seed so He can produce more of His fruit through me as I allow Him to nurture me.

It’s hard to show honor to someone when they hurt your feelings, don’t agree with you or don’t honor you back, but most of the time people react the way they do or treat people the way they do because they haven’t fully surrendered their life to the Lord and don’t know their true identity.  As we walk in our true identity, we will begin to see people the way Jesus does, and we will be able to respond to them with unconditional love the way Jesus does.  Even if one hasn’t given their life fully over to the Lord, we are to see them as a potential child of God – a prince or princess – royalty…because that’s who they/we are!!  You know who you are when you know the I AM!  You don’t have to fix yourself or be “worthy” enough to be in His presence.  Some of you reading this may think that God doesn’t like you or is disappointed in you because of choices you’ve made in life, or the enemy has told you lies that you’re just not good enough or you’re not doing enough to please God.  God doesn’t like our sins but He loves us no matter what!!  We don’t have to please Him because He is already pleased with us.  We don’t have to earn His love because He loved us first.  We don’t have to earn our salvation because Jesus already paid the price.  We simply have to receive the gospel message – that God rescued us from death by sending His son to die for us on the cross so that we might have life with Him for eternity.  There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus and we all need to stop listening to the lies of the enemy.  God’s love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on us!  Wherever you are in life, it’s never too late to get up and follow Jesus.  He is always pursuing you even if you aren’t pursuing Him.

 

I knew that God was going to do a great thing in our family, and He is cleansing our hearts to rid of the things that are not of Him.  To be transparent, the enemy really tried to divide Josh and I for a few weeks while here.  We were hitting walls when trying to communicate and reacting out of hurts, and we couldn’t seem to get past this hurdle.  When it came time to go on our weekend outreach, we were even divided about our entire family going.  Even though God made it clear from the beginning that we were to do certain events together as a family, the enemy tried to bring discouragement and doubt into the situation.  At first we failed to protect our relationship with the Lord and became frustrated and distant with each other, but then we fought against the attacks of the enemy and acknowledged that he was trying to divide us.  If God wanted us to go on outreach, we knew His favor and grace would be upon us because He highlighted 2 Corinthians 12:9 and His word does not turn void!  We will share about our experience with outreach in person, but we want to remind you all how serious the spiritual battle is right now.  We don’t fight against flesh and blood but against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  We know that God has already won the end battle, but in order for us to take back ground that was stolen by the enemy, we must stay in unity and keep our eyes focused on Him.  That is the key.  How do we do that?  Simple.  By living our life out of the first commandment.  By loving God and allowing our hearts to become one with His.  He wants a bride that is caught up with Him and not the world.  Who’s ready to spend their life proving their love to the Lord?  What does it look like to you to love God with all your heart, mind and strength?