4 posts categorized "Judgment"

Tuesday, Three Days Before The Crucifixion ...

My friends, we've reached Tuesday of Holy Week.

Matthew 21:20-26:16, Mark 11:19-14:11, Luke 20:1-22:6, John 12:20-50. Sheep or goat

Honestly, so much happened on this day that it makes my head spin. It's not just the amount of things that happened; it was also the things that Jesus spoke that were particularly intense.

You'll see what I mean in a minute.

On this day, Jesus had several really intense conversations with different groups of people: The Sadducees, who didn’t believe in the resurrection, the Pharisees who were challenging him as usual, and his disciples who just had a whole bunch of confused questions. He was also asked a key question: About the end of the age.

Is it a natural human thing to think of the world ending? Maybe!

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt 24:3, NKJV).

So Jesus told his disciples about the future. He told them that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies, and he told them about what's known as 'the great tribulation' -- a very difficult time in the world's future. He was pointing not only to the siege of Jerusalem that would occur in 70AD, but he was also speaking of a future eschatological event: The end of the age.

He told his disciples that he would come again on the clouds, in glory. And yet he also told them, more immediately, that in three days’ time he would be crucified:

“You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” (Matthew 26:2, NKJV)

His disciples were sorrowful.

Later, in a house surrounded by those he loved, a woman who herself loved him (Mary) cracked an expensive alabaster flask of oil over him. Judas watched and, filled with the wrong spirit, became a voice of criticism:

“Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and used to take what was in it” (John 12:5-6, NKJV)

Jesus answered:

“Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial”. (v. 7)

Quietly then, Judas slipped away and started making plans for Jesus’s betrayal, receiving thirty pieces of silver to give up his friend.

What stands out most to me about this particular day is that Jesus talks repeatedly about something tough: The eternal destination of people according to their own choices. In several of these conversations he alludes unashamedly both to hell and eternal life. Some in the world will go one direction, others will go the other direction. He speaks of disobedient hearts versus faithful hearts, sheep versus goats. It's Mary contrasted with Judas. 

An alabaster flask contrasted with thirty pieces of silver.

Jesus says that in a future time of judgement he will sit on the throne of his glory and divide people: The one category (goats) will go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; the other (sheep) will have eternal life. 

Gulp.

For me personally this a very difficult part of the Gospel message. I struggle to speak of hell as well as heaven, and I struggle to understand it. But I do see it there in the words of Jesus, and so I must hold that info but also trust that God is good and he knows what he is doing. 

I suppose the big lesson here is this: There is eternal life waiting for those who choose to repent and say yes to Him. For as Jesus said on this particular Tuesday, those who go into eternity will be like the angels of God in heaven.

I, for one, know where I want to be. With him, like the woman who broke that alabaster flask. So on that note, I end today’s post with the song 'Alabaster' from Rend Collective. Hope you like this one.

Ian will be writing tomorrow, so over to him next!

Love you all,

Ann


Specifics of the Spiritually Mismatched

Well I realize that that past few posts have challenged us as we consider suffering. We also looked at what Jesus clearly told us. Jesus said:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’—Matthew 10:34-35

Sometimes I find that Christians only want to read the passages that affirm. But becoming a mature believer, means that we must wrangle with these difficult and challenging passages. When I read this scripture, it offered me two things. One, I realize my life with an unbeliever is actually not surprising to God. And two, it relieves me of guilt or condemnation that somehow I’ve failed because my husband hasn’t come to faith.

And by the way, most of us who have been unequally yoked have felt that guilt. Many of you have told me that your pastor or some other “well-meaning” person from church has asked you the stupid questions such as:

  • Didn’t you know he was an unbeliever when you married him?
  • Perhaps you haven’t prayed enough for his salvation.
  • Maybe if you just witness a little harder he will find Jesus.
  • Perhaps you aren’t living enough like Jesus in front of him.

Can I just tell you these irk me? Now hear me, THESE ARE LIES FORM THE PIT OF HELL.

You can’t save your spouse. Only Jesus can save him. Your responsibility is to love. Love God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Spirit first and obey His Word, then love your spouse the best that you can and finally believe that God will do all that is possible to reach your spouse.

So today I want to speak to your heart. I stand in faith and through the truths of the Word and by the power and blood of Jesus Christ, I speak over you truth. You are not responsible for your spouse’s salvation. Only Jesus saves.

I release you from guilt and fear over this issue. I say to you that your heart is made whole in Jesus and words of pain from others now lose their power. I speak to your heart and life and say that the condemnation you have carried over your marriage to an unbeliever is broken. I also refute and renounce the lie that God is mad at you or is punishing you because you find yourself in an unequally yoked marriage.

The truth is that God desires families to thrive and His plan to demonstrate love begins in marriage and family.

I understand that our unique marriages are very difficult and there are some marriage situations where oppression and abuse are present. Hear me clearly now as well. God doesn’t want us to cling to some ideal version of marriage where abuse and oppression exist. Get help and separate yourself from the abuse and find your healing.

Today, I once again want you to realize the great authority to pray and protect your family through the Word of God.

For the believing wife brings holiness to her marriage, and the believing husband brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise, your children would not be holy, but now they are holy. — 1 Corinthians 7:14 NLT

This verse has become a powerhouse in my life. I hope to tell you one day all that has resulted in my family and marriage because God in His great love and mercy placed this passage in His Word. Stay tuned *grin*

Okay, how many of you have receive words of condemnation from other "well-meaning" believers? How did you process through their words? What passages of scripture have been life-changing in your marriage?

I will see you in the comments my family. Today, live in utter confidence because 1 Corinthians 7:14 is for us. Just as God is for us! Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!!!!!  Hugs, Lynn

Romans 8 1


Peter 2 - It's Hard To Love People

image from www.spirituallyunequalmarriage.comMan, reading through the books of Peter have set my faith on fire. I want to chat with you about so many of the passages. There is such power to live a life of strong faith within these titles. And these two small books speak specifics to all of us walking in a spiritually mismatch marriage. So hold on to your hats, we’re gonna experience a whirlwind of faith that shakes our world in every good way.

Awesomeness!!!!

I want to start in a weird place, turn to 2 Peter, chapter 1. It was in this chapter, months ago, that I realized the Spirit was pointing out the pathway of faith to me. I wrote in my Bible at the time in the margin: The Pathway of a Life of Faith. Let’s take a look:

Let me point out verse three:  

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

Holy Mind-Blow! 

I want to talk about power in the next few weeks, but for now just hold on to this as a teaser.

Move along to verses four through eight:

4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Okay, do you perceive the stepping stones, I call them stepping stones of His Promises.

Pathway of Faith 2 Peter 1
Click on this photo, print, use for homework. :)


 

I hope this visual cements the steps of faith in your mind. 

Walking along these stepping stones is what moves us from nursing on milk as spiritual babies, to mature men and women of faith. All of us are currently standing on one of these stones. We take steps forward or back depending on our circumstances and faith maturity. Overall, I think that we understand most of these concepts of faith development and can pursue them through practice and through the encouragement of the Word. 

All, with the exception of one. 

I’m finding that making the leap from mutual affection to love is difficult for many believers. Let me explain. As believers we love God. We adore Him, our Savior, Jesus and the Spirit. We spend time with Him, worship, praise, pray and find that loving God is a pretty cool thing. It's easy to love God. Where we struggle is loving people. 

And I “get it.” People are hard. People disappoint, let you down, they outright lie, deceive and harm you. People are selfish, arrogant, sexually immoral, greedy, and lewd, filled with envy as well as a host of other hurtful and awful character traits. Sounds like the passage out of Mark 7. And this is just a list of our relatives……. *grin* Let alone the strangers in the world. *double grin* 

Christians love God but we often struggle to love people. I know this to be true of so many people including Pastors, teachers of the Word, life-long believers and those whom you would never guess that sound like they love but their actions or their life or even their own words betray them. Because they have been offended and hurt they see people as an annoyance, a bother, awful and unworthy of their time and effort let alone their love. Yikes, could this be me too?

But Peter is reiterating a command of Jesus: Love one another. But how? 

Ah, now we are getting somewhere. 

I am convinced that several months ago the Lord gave me a picture of a combination lock to help me communicate how to love others like Jesus. And I believe there are several components to making this last great hurdle from affection to real-Godly-love. 

As believer’s we have an edge when it comes to loving people because we are empowered and enabled to view people through the eyes of Jesus. 

Let’s consider a husband who struggles with anger or alcohol or both. 

Jesus sees a broken boy underneath this man’s addiction and explosions of rage, who was unloved by his earthly father (most likely). A man who never received affirmation of his value nor training on how to be a man of integrity. He is an angry man who feels he is always a victim of everyone and everything. Looking deeper still, Jesus sees the demonic oppression over his life from the spirit of drink and the spirit of anger. And mostly likely, what Jesus sees at the core of all of this is: An orphan spirit and a spirit of self-loathing or/and self-hatred. 

Whew! That’s a lot! 

Sometimes we need to just take a minute and ask the Lord to help us "see" the person in front of us, who has just ticked us off, through the eyes of Christ. This moment of clarity will lead to some pretty amazing revelations and realizations that can create a paradigm shift in our thoughts, actions, and reactions and then release authentic love for this person. 

It’s a process. It’s another set of stepping stones. Here they are. 

  • Supernatural Love – Lord, I can’t love on my own willpower. I ask for Your heart that I may love others like you love. Place Your heart within me and let me always speak and act out of Your love.
  • Prayer – Lord, help me to see with your eyes. Grant me perception and understanding.
  • Forgiveness – Lord, You need to help me to even want to forgive. Lord, I can’t do this on my own. You will need to change my heart and soul to forgive this person through your supernatural power and love.
  • Compassion – Lord, release in me supernatural compassion to love people, all people with your heart. Let Your compassion reign in my heart with every person with whom I have contact, on the phone, text, face-to-face, any capacity, whether they are a waiter at my lunch table, the janitor of the building, the pastor of my church, my husband, my wife, my children, their teachers, anyone and everyone. Lord, let me see them with your eyes. Always with compassion. In Jesus name. Amen.
  • No Judgement – O Lord, Jesus. I will not judge people by their outward appearance but will seek through the guidance of the Holy Spirit to perceive what is in their heart. Help me to see where they are broken and help me to live to love them in that broken place.
  • Child-like Faith – Lord, make love simple. Make love easy. Pour so much of your love into me that it flows out freely like a child, through a river of living water of love onto every person I meet and especially to my relatives, my immediate family and to my brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Okay, a lot already to study, contemplate and pray. Tell me where you are on the stepping stones. What you are currently praying. Has this post of The Study of Peter helped you? 

Today's challenge/homework (for those who love homework): click on the photo in this post of the stepping stones, print it out. Take it into your prayer time and ask God about the stones here and which one, or more than one, He is currently asking you to seek to understand. Listen as the Holy Spirit guides. He might direct you to write names next to stones or issues or prayers. I would love for you to share those with me in a week or so.

I love you my friends. See you on Monday for another bunch of great words from the books of Peter. And Dineen will be sharing on Saturday. Woo Hoo! It's a blast reading the Word of God with you! Hugs, Lynn

  image from www.spirituallyunequalmarriage.com


The Combination To The Power Of Heaven

Hi My Friends,  (Combination is at the bottom. Read all the way through.) 

Isaiah 53 5
Today I want to share a few thoughts with regard to healing. Several weeks ago I shared with you a few stories about healing.  

I finally want to chat with you about a mystery, the healing power of Jesus. Firstly, always, always, Jesus is our healer. He was bruised (Isaiah 53:5) for our iniquity and upon him the stripes of His beatings were for our healing. Man, if you just allow that thought in your head…… Recently I was listening to some teaching about healing. Did you know that Jesus’ face was beaten to a point that He was unrecognizable? When I consider the suffering He bore for my healing, I refuse to let one little bit of it go unclaimed. I will not waste the torture He endured that was meant for my healing. How about you? 

Anyhoo, by this point you know that I absolutely believe in healing. Healing of the soul, spirit and of our physical body. I’ve seen it. Experienced it and believe what the Word of God says about healing. 

But today I think we need to talk about why some aren’t healed. Why people receive healing prayer and nothing happens or a partial healing occurs. I will say right up front. We don’t know. It is a complete mystery as to why some aren’t healed and some are. 

But I can also share some firm thoughts as to what can keep us from experiencing healing. Let’s start with three things.

  1. Unbelief
  2. Unforgiveness
  3. Bitterness 

Unbelief. I want to share a story from the Healing Rooms. When the three of us, myself, my daughter Caitie and Gina entered the room, we were already halfway healed. Why? Because first, we TRULY believed we would be, could be. We did NOT doubt but truly walked in child-like faith. I’m in a season right now where God is teaching me the power of child-like faith. I have witnessed more supernatural encounters since returning from Bethel than I have ever before. I am convinced it’s because I have combined three things.

  • Child-like faith (I will explain more)
  • Compassion
  • No judgment 

Man, when you put these all together in a soul, Jesus shows up with all kinds of power and love. 

Child-like faith is the opposite of unbelief. Now get this: I choose to believe. Flat out decide that God’s Word is true, and it is. This kind of faith is gained and learned through maturity. What a contradiction of thoughts. Spiritual maturity births child-like faith. Oh how like the Lord to purpose faith this way. 

Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.—1 Corinthians 1:27 

Unforgiveness which gives birth to bitterness keeps so many of us from everything of the Kingdom. I am at a place in my faith walk where I literally choose to not be offended even when I have every right to be offended. I take the offense to Jesus and ask Him to help me rid it from my heart. I choose love. I choose love. I choose love. Couple love with compassion and it’s powerful my friends. 

Which leads to judgment. Ah, now this is the place that gets in the way of most believers. We judge people so harshly. In the depths of our heart we size a person up, declare their faults and failures in our minds and then sentence them to shame, unworthiness or wickedness. And we do all that in seconds. 

What Jesus is teaching me now is some powerful lessons in choosing compassion over judgment.   

Recently I was praying and the Lord brought homeless people to my mind. And I grieved for them. I said out loud in my prayers, “Lord, I will give to them. I don’t care how they came to be homeless or that they may be drunks, druggies, lazy. I will just love them.” 

You know what God said back to me? “Lynn, if you will love these people for me without judging them, why do you judge your daughter-in-law who has left your son. She needs help right now. Will you help her too?” 

GULP! 

Ouch. I mailed her a card, a photo of Elise and money that day. Yeppers. I did. 

What I saw in the healing rooms were those who were child-like and those who were judging everything that happened. They saw God interacting with people and God can be unexpected. Things can get animated as people encounter the God of the Universe. They were skeptical and thought they knew how people should behave. These were the people who did not experience healing. They were too busy judging…. And get this- really, they were judging our God! It scares me to even think about casting judgment on God for the way He interacts with people. SCARES ME!!! 

On the way to the conference when all of us were together sitting at a restaurant for lunch, I put down one ground rule for our conference experience. I looked straight into the eyes of the teens and said, “No matter what you might see or experience this week, you cannot judge others by what they look like or what they may do. If you don't judge, you will encounter everything you are hoping for.” 

Guess what? 

They did! 

And so can you.

image from www.spirituallyunequalmarriage.com
 

Monday I want to share what has been happening in these weeks since Jesus has been teaching me. I feel like He has given me the combination lock to unlock the power of heaven and voice of God. Child-like faith, compassion and absolutely NO judgment. 

I’m in awe of what He is doing. 

And I’m STILL wanting to get onto this series about how to deal with the spirit of confusion, the critical spirit and few other unwelcome and evil entities we contend with. Are you up for all of this my friends? 

Why do you think I spend so much time teaching about the truths of God and focusing on our spiritual growth instead of speaking to unequally yoked marriages? It’s because, once we have our faith walk in the thriving zone, everything falls into that zone as well. 

I love you my family on the web. Stay tuned because the breakthroughs are gaining momentum and if you are a regular here, you have one or more coming. In Jesus name. Amen.