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At about 1 am a week and a half ago I was sitting at a kitchen table in the tiny town of Norton, Kansas. I was hanging out with a friend of mine that I have known for about twenty years. She and her husband were my youth pastors long (too long) ago. I was sharing with her a powerful and significant encounter that I had with the Lord almost a year ago now and how I knew, at that time, He was inviting me on an incredible journey with Him through the Song of Songs. ” So where in the journey do you think you are?” Annette, my friend asked.
I hesitated a little, examined my fingernails and responded with: ” 2: 17… when she tells her beloved to go to the mountains without her.” Annette giggled a little. “I don’t know why I feel like I’m saying no to the Lord. As far as I know He hasn’t asked me to do anything. I just feel like He’s going to ask me and I won’t be ready. I like where I’m at.”
My friends had asked me several times to come visit them in Norton. A ministry group out of Minnesota came once or twice to their church each year and they insisted, each time, that I should come and check them out. Life at IHOP is always busy so it seemed that something always came up when this group was in town. This year, however, my schedule was clear so I finally headed to Norton to see my old friends and check out this supposedly amazing prophetic worship team that James and Annette couldn’t stop raving about. As I hung out with this group, known as the Firestarters, I became increasingly nervous but I couldn’t identify what the problem was.
Later that night, James, Annette, and I were up again late into the night when I began sharing with James a dream I had about a year ago. For the sake of time, I won’t describe the dream but it was basically about how I would be living with a community of believers who would take me in and become a covering for me (of course I didn’t realize what it was about at the time). James began interpreting the dream to me and the only response I had was: “this can’t be good”. Last summer, as I was sharing this dream with a prophetic leader at IHOP, her only response was “I think you will have the interpretation of this dream in a year.”…. interesting.
I’m not going to vividly describe the events of the weekend. Nothing incredibly dramatic occurred, only a haunting uneasiness that I couldn’t shake. After returning to IHOP my heart was saying, you need to join this community but my head was saying I’m not listening to you, heart, you are crazy.
The following Saturday I spent the majority of the afternoon in the prayer room. At one point I was standing in the back leaning against the wall, honestly trying to drown out the voice of God when another prophetic leader came up to me and said, “Brooke. You are trying to make a decision aren’t you?”. I just looked at her blankly. She continued anyway, “the Lord says that He is moving you to a new place. It’s going to be different than what you are use to but you have to know that it is Him speaking this to you. You are going to walk through this with Him. He says you are ready.” She went on in greater detail and all that I could manage to do was shake my head in disbelief. I walked out of the prayer room to get some fresh air only to run into another friend that I haven’t seen in some time. We had a casual conversation for awhile when my friend mentioned that she had been thinking of me earlier this week and the Lord spoke to her and told her that I wouldn’t be at IHOP for much longer. Okay… so this is starting to get frightening.
Let’s just say I cried myself to sleep that night… or actually I didn’t sleep at all… I just cried and then God spoke to me that verse again “come with me to the mountains!” He said. This time I didn’t say no. I decided to say Yes.
The kicker happened last night. I headed to the prophecy rooms as a last-ditch effort to prove Him wrong (like that’s going to happen). What did I hear? “The Lord wants you to know that wherever He is calling you right now, to not be afraid. You are in His perfect will. His hand is on this so you will be safe and you have nothing to fear because you are exactly where He wants you.” As if this wasn’t enough, he continued “I also see Him holding His hand out to you and asking you, like in Song of Songs, to arise and come away with Him to the mountains.”
Filed under: Communing with the Holy Spirit, Humility, Jesus, Maturity, The Cross, Trust
To be like Jesus means we embrace humility and love those who deny and despise us. We see His heart open wide and weep for Israel as they drive Him out of cities and attempt to stone Him. We see how he reacted in love and tenderness towards Peter’s denial of Him. As He hung bleeding from the cross, arms open wide, taking upon Himself the sin of us all, He loved from the depths of His being, feeling the pain but not reacting out of it. In the cross He won our battle and succeeded but He succeeded by walking through disgrace. He was not pretentious but was truth itself. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He did not withhold the gifts the Father gave Him. He was not self-sabotaging but came as an example to us of true Life. He did only what the Father told Him to do and did not withhold out of insecurity or pride. In the midst of rejection, He spoke truth boldly yet lived to serve humanity.
To be like Him means that we end the self-sabotaging, self-deprecating and false humility. We walk out our gifts not to esteem ourselves but to serve Jesus and man. We don’t shrink back because of our fear of failure but in meekness within the bounds of intimacy we offer all that we have.
Filed under: Maturity
The setting in dreams contain significant importance to the message behind the dream. If the setting is your childhood bedroom, than the dream most likely has something to do with your childhood. If the dream is in a desert, this does not indicate a vibrant spiritual life. I thought of the settings in various pieces of great liturature: the lonely, dark moors of England in “Wuthering Heights”; the lifeless, foreboding Egdon Heath in “Return of the Native”; the dusty, feverish streets of Spain in Hemingway’s (who is the most brilliant at preparing a scene for the reader) “The Sun Also Rises”.
A talented writer knows when a single word, though it might fit appropriately in a piece of dialogue, will actually take away from the actual message the writer wishes to convey. A shallow writer adds words that manipulate the reader rather than allow for honesty and a raw, unhindered story. They know how to assist the reader in visualizing the story rather than spew forty descriptive words. “Painting a picture with words” is not a string of pretentious adjetives but contains verbs and life and beauty.
I thought about this when it pertains to our every day dialogue . Matthew 12:36-37 says, “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account for it in the day of judgement. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
How many times have I used my words to deceieve and manipulate, maybe not intentionally but maybe because my mouth just wouldn’t stop running? How many of my words were completely unnecessary and spoken simply out of insecurity? Most of us have a similar problem. We have tiny little additions to our conversations… facts that may be true (for the most part) but we say them to receive honor from men or to paint this external picture of ourselves to more easily dismiss any vulnerability with others?
Every word that comes from our mouth will be weighed by God. Is there anything more frightening?
I was basically seriously disturbed all day yesterday. Why? Simply because I found an old blog circa 2003-2004 era. That was one of the darkest seasons of my life and one that I truly do not want to remember… hence the “disturbed” day I had. The truth is, however traumatized I was from reading that blog, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I realized how truly changed and redeemed I was and how close I had become to losing my life… but not in a nice Jesus way of losing my life…. in a literal, point blank way of losing my life. It was a little painful reading parts of that blog but over and over I saw God’s protection over me and felt even more relief that surely, God wouldn’t go through all of the trouble to save a mess like me if He didn’t have some plan, if His promises weren’t true.
I found a dream that I had written down in that blog that I read to a couple of co-workers and they were all aghast at the intensity of it. I’d like to share it with you because well, though it is excruciating, it’s also very very meaningful.
In my dream, my legs had been crushed. Shards of bone were splintered everywhere and my skin was covered with blood. I was at the doctor’s office where he meticulously and compassionately bandaged my wounds. The scene switches and I’m back at the doctor’s office again. He has me walk around the office and I pretend like I’m not feeling any pain but of course He knows the truth. He shakes his head and grimaces and says to me the one thing that most medical patiends NEVER want to hear “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to break your legs again.” So He takes them in his hands and breaks them again. Scene switches and my legs are still gradually healing when he repeats the same horrible statement: “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to keep breaking your legs again and again until they are totally healed.”
I had to laugh after reading this. I distinctly remember the last time the Lord broke my legs. It was a couple of months before I came to IHOP. He had broken them over and over again during the course of a 4 year period until I finally realized I had to make a choice to lean on Him and not take my life into my own hands.
I remember that day distinctly… when I made the choice to trust Him. None of my roommates were home that evening. I had skipped out on the festivities… there was just too much turmoil in my heart. I stood in the bedroom that Amber and I shared and I screamed at the top of my lungs, “I don’t understand you, God! I don’t understand you but I love you and I’m going to follow you anyway!” There were a lot of other things I said that night to God but that particular statement changed my life. Not that I still don’t make mistakes and slip back into self-deception but I have learned that life with God is made with one choice at a time. I have to ask myself consistently… “in this situation… are you saying ‘yes’ to God even when you don’t see the end of the story? Even when it feels like it’s too much for you to handle? Even when you’re scared to death?”
Friendship with God is an adventure and obedience is usually much more exciting than we think it is. Let’s not give God a bad rap. He loves to fascinate and exhilarate… if we trust that He will.
I heard Bob Hartley tell a story about one of his daughters who had seriously mis-behaved one morning. Bob had a meeting which he was already late for and his daughter was making him even more late. He was exhasperated and after the episode and got in his car to attempt to make it to the meeting as soon as he could. He and his daughter have a special time on some mornings where they go and have donuts together. Right as Bob hopped in his car, his little girl ran out of the house to his car window and yelled out “DONUTS!”. Bob just looked at her with a: are you kidding me… you’ve already made me late for work because of you naughtiness expression on his face. She looked at him again: “DONUTS!” she yelled.Bob finally replied with “and what makes you think I would have donuts with you today after how you have behaved?”. His little girl looked up at him and responed simply with “because I know who you are.”
I thought about this verse yesterday as I was beating myself up about my past financial irresponsibility. I was now in a jam and didn’t really foresee a way out of it at this point. I was fretting about how I would make an extra $300 dollar student loan payment on top of credit card bills, rent, food, gas and especially nervous about having to pay the property tax on my car in July. Last night I thought I would have to have yet another one of my sleepless nights when I thought of the story of Bob and his daughter. “Abba. I know this mess is my fault but I know you’re a good Dad and I trust that even when I make mistakes you delight in me and will take care of me.”
This morning I called the student loan people and explained to them my issues and they have now reduced my payment to 150 a month and I won’t have to pay at all for the month of June so that I can pay my property tax! Praise God that we have a good Dad who really does love us, even when we make mistakes. He is so full of mercy!
I’ve made the mistake recently of looking back on my past recently and envying the people that are still living the way I use to. What I figured out is that if you look past the thin veneer of knowing all of the “right people” or people recognizing you when you’ve never met them in your life… or you get past the ludicrously superficial conversations that only happen in bars… or the van trips with stinky musicians who, in order to keep their sanity, are bent on trying to out-do eachother with practical jokes… or recieving degrading comments by random drunk guys… or spending days at a time laying around a girlfriends house whining about your broken hearts over a couple of Shiners…
“Well, Brooke… if you put it THAT way…”
Yeah. And that’s only the surface stuff.
Along with all of that amusement also comes seperation from God. All that stuff in the paragraph above… well that’s called disobedience. That’s called choosing your own path. It’s also spelled “D-E-A-T-H”. And knowing you’re choosing death instead of choosing eternal life, friendship with the living God, hearing His voice, a love that will not… EVER relent… knowing your choosing death (aka your own stinkin’ flesh) is depressing. There is nothing more agonizing, nothing more painful, nothing more despairing than choosing to be seperated from the presence of Jesus.
And then one day I figured out this simple truth: It isn’t about me! Granted, occasionally I slip back into this silly lie but one day I woke up and said… “I haven’t dug myself a hole so deep that Jesus can’t pull me out of it”.
The relentess stuff that I wrote about earlier. That’s actually the most painful part though when we’re in the thick of it, we don’t really see it that way. I know I interpreted that part as God forgetting about me or not caring about me. Basically, He allowed my life to become completely miserable. Sounds like fun, huh? Jesus is kind… He is gentle but he will use the least amount of discipline to provoke your heart in the deepest ways imaginable. Sometimes we’re so stubborn or so full of fear that His version of discipline might as well be Guantanomo Bay.
We were created to have this amazing communion with God… with a Jesus who is ALIVE and wants friendship with us. And if we don’t do what we were created for we will spend our whole lives trying to find our purpose in other things and we will never… ever find it because it’s not there. It’s with Him. And that is… beautiful.
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So my little brother phones me at around midnight tonight and all that I can think of when I see his name on my caller ID is that he has gotten himself into trouble again (don’t ask about the trouble he’s gotten himself into before). I can hear a crowd of people around him and I remember that this week his no-budget, full-length film, “Slumberland” was premiering at the Little Rock Film Festival this week.
Turns out his little indie film won… BEST PICTURE!!!!
The festival president even made the remark that he was honored that Zach and his buddies chose to play their film at LRFF first and that he was looking forward to watching the film at many other festivals.
Zach has been through a lot this year and I’m very excited to see something good happen to him. Though I’m praying that some other things happen in his life as well (I’m sure he knows what they are), I am very proud of him and love him to pieces.
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Rebbecca Kurtz novel, Sons of God was written from Kurtz fascination with archaeological studies and ancient writings about the Nephilim. The Nephalim are only directly mentioned in one part of the entire Bible: Genesis 6:1-3
Then the Lord said,
“My Spirit will not contend with human beings forever, for they are mortal, their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward- when the sons of God went to the daughters of human beings and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created- and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.
Sons of God is centered around a character named Raechev (Hebrew form of Rachel) who though she believes in the true God, Elohim, is an immortal Nephilim that has lived for thousands of years. She was born to Ishtar, a Babylonian Nephilim who was worshipped as a god and who allowed humans to worship her by sacrificing their own children. Raechev, though righteous, refuses to kill her own mother, whom Elohim commands her to kill in order to bring about His righteous judgements. Though Raechev sees the evil her mother is committing, she disobeys Elohim and is forced to wander the earth, immortal, for thousands of years and forbidden to enter the righteous City of Refuge that was built to protect the righteous Nephilim.
Kurtz, a self-proclaimed Messianic Jewish Believer, derived much of her material from texts including the Koran, the book of Enoch, and other ancient Babylonian and Assyrian writings.
It is my intent to write a balanced review of this novel in the light that as this is a public forum, I believe I have a responsibility as a Believer in Jesus to write my opinion based on my own knowledge of the Word of God.
Most of the story takes place in the modern day Ninevah archaeological excavation site as Raechev struggles with the sadness of being separated from Elohim while also trying to stay safe from the unrighteous Nephilim spirits who are still roaming the earth, sometimes possessing the bodies of human beings.
In the novel, most of us are able to identify with the pain Raechev feels from her separation from God. We feel the ache and loneliness and yet the refusal to accept the cost of following God and handing Him our very lives. Most of us have lived through those moments of despair when we believed the lie that disobedience was safer and more enjoyable than giving God access to our hearts.
Kurtz plays to the current trend of vampire literature among young people by writing a novel that mirrors the styles and themes of literature that are so popular right now. In some sense she removes the dark witchcraft connotations while subtely introducing the atonement and the grace of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand there are definitely some aspects of this novel we must be aware of. I believe that as we write literature from the standpoint of a Believer in Jesus, we must also cause it to line up with the very Word of God. Now, of course we need to remember that Rebecca’s novel is in fact just that… a novel. It is a work of fiction, not a textbook on theology or doctrine. However, stories can be powerful tools to communicate truth and can be especially powerfully to impressionable youth. So as in everything else in our lives, truth must also be present in everything that we do.
As most of you know I am a believer in the supernatural. I believe that Ephesians 6 is true: “for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.
I have personally been an eyewitness to both angels and demons and I believe that there is a (sometimes) unseen realm constantly at work around us. I also believe in the gifts of the Spirit. I believe that we can hear and should regulary listen to the voice of God for ourselves and others as expressed in 1 Corinthians 14. I have had many powerful encounters with Jesus, dreams, visions and am also a member of a prophecy team here at the International House of Prayer.
However, we need to be mindful of the very thin line between supernatural darkness and supernatural light. 1 John 1:4 exhorts us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”
As someone who has in the past dabbled with the occult sciences, some of the content of this novel was startling to me. She uses telepathic communication as an every day occurrence with the characters and mentions psychics and clairvoyants but does not seem to be clear at all that both of these groups are clearly not from God and don’t operate from the Spirit of God.
Rebecca’s theology on demons is also questionable. In it she inferences that demons are disembodied spirits of Nephilim and that we are always to be on a look out of their possession of us. We need to be careful as doers and hearers of the Word to not add or take away anything from God-breathed scripture.
You shall not add to the Word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, so that you may keep the commands of Jehovah your God which I command you. Duet. 4:2
Pro 30:6 Do not add to His Words, lest He reprove you and you be found a liar.
We need to remember that Nephilim, according to scripture, were wiped out by the flood and all that survived were righteous Noah and his family members. According to the scripture that I copied in the very beginning of this blog, God was not happy with humans for breeding with these Nephilim. Some believe that humans were practicing some sort of witchcraft and demon worship and are believed to have called down the Nephilim as an act of disobedience and defiance against trusting in Yahweh. This was evidently the reason God was so angered with human beings and “regretted” that He had created them at all.
I also believe that we need to be cautious of over-emphasizing the demonic. Over fascination with demons is almost borderline demon-worship in that we are givng too much attention to wickedness rather than the One True God. Jesus wants our attention and the truth is worshipping HIM is the best sort of spiritual warfare we can have.
Another area of the novel that I believe we also need to be aware of, especially if teenagers and young people will be reading it, is the amount of subtle impure suggestion it contains. In the story, the two main characters, Raechev and Jordan are both obviously attracted to eachother. Though there’s nothing wrong with a good love story, I believe that there were way too many inferences and suggestive joking regarding bathing together, lingering impure stares, close to graphic make-out scenes and even subtle complacency about premarital sex. Kurtz didn’t seem to want to make it a prudish novel but also didn’t seem to be clear on sexual boundaries in this book which is especially dangerous for the young crowd that would be reading this book.
And so to be perfectly honost, though I believe Rebecca’s intentions are good in wanting to relate to young fans of vampire/supernatural literature and even somewhat directing them to God, I will not recommend this book.
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A couple of months ago at the Passion for Jesus Conference I was taking a break from the fury of the bookstore and sprawled across the bleachers to listen to Mike’s message. He made a statement that I have probably heard a hundred times but this time it felt like I was hearing it for the first time. He said “IHOP is not the first dream of my heart. IHOP is my assignment but loving God is the first dream of my heart.”
Huh
This should be obvious.
But apparently it wasn’t obvious enough because that statement has been haunting me since March.
At some point we have to lay down all of our romantic notions and expectations about life and learn to enjoy, love and live for God with everything we have. We have to be okay with just loving God in the present and if that is all that he ever calls us to, than it should be enough.
It’s okay and even necessary to have other dreams and visions. But if we don’t have love for God as the primary dream of our heart, all of our accomplishments and goals will eventually shrivel up and die.
And so as Julie Meyer spoke of at Friday night EGS, I am embracing the backrow for this season and embracing the Lover of my soul for my lifetime ahead.
Last week my mom called me in a rage explaining that she and a friend got into an argument. She and this friend have known each other for years now but one day, her friend, out of nowhere declared that Jesus was in fact not God. “God wouldn’t die for me”, she responded, “that’s ludicrous!”. My mom was indignant. How could this woman say that? Her friend had grown up in a very conservative denomination. My mom pointed out the famous John 1:1… “1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” I mean… that’s pretty self-explanatory. I’ve had some pretty stiff disagreements with people who have said that you can still be saved and not believe Jesus was God. WHAT???
Yesterday, I was meditating on this verse and hope began filling my heart. We cannot be saved unless we believe that God, Himself, came to earth as a human because He loves humans and wanted to identify with humans. Only God can be perfect as Jesus is perfect and in order for us to be saved we had to have the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Nothing can remedy and restore our souls but the perfect blood of the perfect God-man. The blood of bulls and goats was not enough. And not only this but the blood of Jesus has supernatural elements that empower us to walk in holiness. It has allowed us access into the very presence of God, to have communion with Him and to allow Him to speak to us and teach us and empower us to walk worthy before Him. Jesus did not stay in the tomb. That was not the end of the story. We cannot have relationship with Him unless He had risen. He cannot speak to us unless He is alive.
I love the rest of the passage as well: John 1:1-5 ” 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[a] it.”
Jesus was the very Word of God. He was the method the Father used to communicate to His beloved ones. He loved and desired us to such a great extent that He sent His beautiful Son to come and teach humanity truth. The Father and Son had such wonderful fellowship, even from the beginning of all things. Before the earth was formed, they were in relationship. Jesus, the Word of God, breathed life into every living thing. He is the source of life. The source of light and truth and darkness cannot overcome it. This Light is so powerful that darkness has no chance against it. Even when the wicked rages against the Light and goes to battle against it, there is no defeating the light. The source of life cannot lose the battle with death.
The darkness does not understand the light… mainly because it’s deeds are evil and it does not want to turn to the Light. The darkness loves to remain the way it is. If Light challenges darkness (and it will), the darkness will hate the Light.
Walk in the Light while it is still day.
