Filed under: End Times
Believing that God is going to melt the earth and judge wickedness with jealous severity is not exactly a “happy thought” to most believers in Jesus. Yahweh is not some frou frou God who dances around rainbows and wants to make everyone feel good about themselves. He is a jealous God who hates wickedness and who desires a kingdom of voluntary lovers. These voluntary lovers are the ones that will stand in that last day. The ones that are after His heart and whose consciences have been purified and cleansed by the blood of the lamb. We see this jealous jealousy throughout the entire Bible. In Genesis, God destroys the wicked earth with a flood but saves a remnant of the righteous Noah and his family. In Exodus, He destroys wicked Egypt but saves the righteous remnant of Israel. Throughout the prophets he destroys an obstinate Israel who refuse to follow and obey Him, again while saving a righteous remnant. What makes us think that God won’t judge the earth as it is now? The earth is filled with more wickedness and evil than any other time in history. Billions of babies are slaughtered in the name of convenience every year and even the modern church won’t lift a finger to do anything about it. Little girls are enslaved to satisfy the cravings of depraved men. Followers of Jesus are tortured and murdered for their faith all over the world. Witchcraft, demon worship and satanism keep whole villages in bondage. Children are brain-washed into being killing machines in Uganda to defend the cause of an evil man. Shall I go on? What makes you think that Jesus will not do anything about this?
Yesterday in the prayer room, while reading chapter 13 of Ezekial, I was overcome by the true prophet’s message to the false prophets in Israel. The false prophets were preaching a message of peace.
“Because they lead my people astray, saying “Peace,” when there is no peace…
rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth“
Ezekial 13: 10-11
The future judgement of the earth is everywhere in the Word of God. In Joel 2, it says that
“I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord”
Again, in Joel 3 it says:
“for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side.
Swing the sickle for the harvest is ripe.
Come, trample the grapes
for the winepress is full
and the vats overflow
2 Peter 3 (after the new covenant)
“By the same word the present heaves and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of the ungodly…..
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to bed? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it’s coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in heat. But in keeping with his promse we are looking forward to a new heaven and new earth.”
This is not a secondary doctrine. This is THE doctrine. This is why Jesus died. He died so that we would be able to be His voluntary lovers. Without His ultimate sacrifice He wouldn’t be able to have a kingdom of lovers. Yet there are false prophets within the world and even within the church who preach “peace, peace when there is no peace”.
2 Peter 2 says,
“But there were also false prophets among the people just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovreign Lord who bought them– bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories”.”
Peter is comparing the end-times false prophets to those of the false prophets of Israel in the Old Testament. There are well-meaning false prophets in our churches today who are preaching that we have nothing to worry about. Why would God destroy the earth He created? It’s not because He is not good, it’s because He IS good. The land, the mountains, the ocean… sure He loves these thing but He is more concerned about His people… the ones He loves… the ones that choose to follow Him. And vengeance is His.
He is a jealous husband that will not allow His bride to be mistreated. He will remove everything that hinders love and He will do it in perfect timing.
I don’t really have anything profound to say but I will say that I am so glad Holy Spirit is a constant companion. If He didn’t exist, I doubt… no, I KNOW that none of the significant happenings in my heart lately would well, would be happening.
I went to Old Chicago with a friend tonight. It’s a great KC pizza place on 119th and Metcalf. I go out with this friend often but we always come to the same conclusion each time we get together: two people couldn’t possibly be more different than we are. We are night and day complete opposites but we have one thing in common; we are both madly in love with Jesus, can’t wait for His return and are passionate about reminding those around us that a new King is about to come to this earth.
As soon as we met, this friend had a dream that we were standing on the edge of an ocean and there were crowds of people around us and we were desperately sharing with these people that Jesus was in love with them and was coming soon: no one believed us. No one listened to us but we kept preaching. Here we are, two years later, and still telling these things to our loved ones and still getting the same reaction: apathy.
It’s not a fun thing to know that everyone thinks your insane when you are just simply sharing the truth of God’s Word… but when you have someone that is just as insane, standing beside you. Well things are just easier that way.
Filed under: Communing with the Holy Spirit, End Times, Healing, Music, Prophetic Dreams, Spirit of the Age, The Arts
In a farm house (think ‘wizard of oz), looking out the window… only to see several black tornadoes in the distance drawing closer to the home I was in. I walk outside and suddenly start floating into the air and then soaring above the tornadoes with none other than my… laptop? I am moving fast flying over and even THROUGH some of the tornadoes. It is an exhilarating feeling. I then land in front of the house again, rush in and hide in the bath tub (good place to go durning a tornado if you don’t have a basement). I wake up.
Recently, Jesus (my best friend) has been speaking to me about writing again and I actually feel like I’m getting more oppurtunities than I have had in awhile. I believe that spirit-led writing and art and music are going to be part of the epic end-time battle… God vs. evil. However, I’m feeling deeply insecure about it. I haven’t written a short story since college, five years ago. I believe that as a prophetic messenger, God will not only be using our voices but elements of art that convey the power and beauty of God. This art, inspired by the spirit of God will have an anointing on it, far more powerful than the demonic anointing that comes from music and media tainted with the spirit of this age. I still feel insecure about it… to the point that I think I will vomit. Ridiculous, huh?
Being in inner healing is bringing a lot of junk from my childhood to the surface. It’s stirring up a lot of past insecurities and pain that God has finally begun a process of healing on. I think it’s for this reason… so that I can contain and receive ideas and dreams from heaven. It’s not a fun season but it is definitely one that is valuable and necessary… but it’s still killing me!
I had a dream last night that I was ice skating in this indoor rink. On the floor of the rink, under the ice were anti-God slogans that were put there by the government. I don’t remember exactly what they said but I know that last night the state of the church was heavy on my heart. To me this dream represented the church, symbolically “skating on thin ice”. We can no longer tolerate even hint of the anti-christ spirit in our churches. We need to start getting serious about the truth of God’s Word. We need to stop being so tolerant of compromise. This is the end of the age, people.
So my step-mom from Little Rock had a dream a few weeks ago. She said that she was in a watchtower and there were all kinds of people up there, families, different cultures, children. They were all looking out the windows of the watchtower when they saw a deep darkness coming towards them. That is when they all knew to immediately “go down”. So they all took off down the stairs as quickly as their legs would carry them. Cheri noticed that a jug of milk had been left behind by someone. I feel that this jug of milk connotes maturity (1Corinthians 3:1-3) as in… we were living off of milk but now we are graduating to “solid food”. I feel that there will be an acceleration of maturity as we see darkness spreading it’s tentacles across the church. Cheri saw a fire-escape and went down it but it didn’t go all the way down. It stopped at a level. She saw a gate with a man standing behind it. The gate was closed but not locked… (I’m still not sure what this means). Then she saw two junior-high school kids and she asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were waiting for an adult who had to go up and get someone else. Cheri remembers think ing “there’s not enough time for that!”. In other words… we need to start preparing this generation NOW before it’s too late. She then gently guided the children to find their way out.
Thoughts?
Filed under: End Times
Check this out. This is from a Dutch news show.
Filed under: End Times, Evangelism, Grace, Humility, Intimacy with God, Jesus Loves Me, Maturity, Spirit of the Age
I was just up reading and praying when I started to think about something hard… and well I thought I would share it. Friday night before I left I had a few friends over and as we were talking, I found myself back in a mindset that I haven’t been in in awhile. Though what my friends were talking about was provoking me in some good ways, I became a little confused as to what I really believed anymore about certain issues.
Depending on the person the word “holiness” could have a good or a bad conotation. To some of my friends that have grown up in legalism, uber-piety, and un-sincere fundamentalism churchiness, the word “holiness” can bring up feelings of resentment, condemnation, and well… bitterness. Having been the daughter of an Assemblies of God pastor, I have felt the brunt of the misuse of this word for years and years. It wasn’t that movies were just not the most edifying things to see when I was a kid… they were BAD and evil (this was not coming from my parents by the way but members of my church) and if you were caught going into a movie theater than you must not be very “holy”. As a result of the massive amounts of legalism and self-righteousness and ELITISM in my church, later on in my adult years I decided that “holiness” was not worth it if I was going to be constanty baraged by condemnation from other imperfect people.
But as I’ve come to IHOP and spent hours in the prayer room and listenened to the teaching I felt a struggle stirring inside of me. At first I didn’t agree with most of what was taught. I have spent years in an emerging church movement where holiness was rarely a topic that was discussed. Though I loved Jesus and so did my church, I found myself at times drinking a little more than I liked (and then waking up one morning after having one of those nights with a demon in my bed!!!!), having conversations that were clearly not good things to be talking about, not practicing the sermon on the mount or even THINKING about that sermon. All that mattered was that maybe I was learning to love Jesus and spending time with Him but compromise was not something I ever thought of.
The point that I am trying to make is that holiness is not a bad word. The hard thing to understand about holiness though, is that it’s not about rules and if it becomes about rules than it’s totally not from the Lord. I know that I cannot earn God’s love by trying to follow the law. God already loves me more than I could understand. However, my life and how I live it and if I’m keeping a clear conscience should be a natural reflection of my love for the Lord. My striving to be holy shouldn’t stem from trying to out-do someone else (elitism) but it should be fruit of my relationship with the Holy Spirit. It should be a constant listening and speaking relationship with God. It should be from a firm foundation in the Word of God. It’s knowing to obey even when it’s hard (and when I don’t obey… which I admit happens way more than I would like)… because I love Him and I want to stand before Him one day knowing that I didn’t live this life so that I could feel comfortable but I lived this life to build the kingdom.
And just so you know… I don’t think like this every day. I don’t wake up and say “alright Jesus, I’m gonna do my best to build the kingdom today”. Most of the time I want to just be comfortable and sit on my butt all day doing nothing. Most of the time I want to whine and complain about how I have no time for anything or that I can’t see my old friends and do fun things anymore. Sometimes I even reminisce about how much “fun” I had hanging out in bars, playing pool, and drinking beer.
And that brings me to another topic. Drinking beer in a bar with people that are un-saved does NOT bring them to Jesus. Now don’t get me wrong. I actually strongly feel that I am called to hang out in bars with the un-saved… someday. But you do not seem less uptight when you are drinking a beer. It’s not a relating to them through beer-drinking that shows them Jesus, it’s your love for Jesus being clearly evident in how you treat them and love the person you are ministering to. I have other opinions about alcohol consumption that I would prefer to not say on here but just trust that I am not as legalistic as this may appear to you.
In England ESPECIALLY it is a hugely terrible example to be drinking in bars with the un-saved. Why? Because alcoholism is a major major problem even among believers here in this country. We all know that even if we are drinking, we shouldn’t get drunk but what kind of statement would it make if we DID NOT drink at all around others? Yeah, yeah, we may try to justify ourselves and ask why it is such a big deal when we only like the taste of alcohol but I believe that though we think we are having a postive effect we are really having a massively negative effect. I have never in my LIFE after all the years of drinking as a Christian…. EVER had a postive situation happen while drinking. Drinking impairs judgement and in my case, the girl who always puts her foot in her mouth…. it becomes much more of a problem after I’ve had a few.
The bottom line is, we have to understand that the age we’re in is not “fun time”. Though fun is good and Jesus loves us to have fun, if our version of fun is even POTENTIALLY compromising than why do we even bother????? Yes, we all have issues and none of us love Jesus perfectly and none of us are really righteous but we must must must pursue the heart of God and maturity or we will not make it when it all comes down.
This is like most of the things I’ve been writing for the past year: An explosion of stream of consciousness that is seriosly hard to decifer and I wish that I could explain it better then I have but I just had to unload what was on my heart tonight.
The last couple of weeks have caused me to re-evaluate my music collection. I never thought this would be an issue I would question in my life but the more I’ve thought and prayed about it the more I realize that what I listen to and put before my eyes dulls my Spirit. It keeps me away from the supernatural dimension that I want to be a part of. Mike has recently spoken about how there will be two worship movements being raised up in the endtimes. One of them will be the antichrist worship movement and one will be for Jesus. We need to find and seek out music that is beautiful and artistic but that pushes us closer to the Lord. This kind of music is not very common at the moment but I think if we, as musicians, begin to ask the Lord for the creativity that only comes from heaven, we can exceed the artistic ability of secular society. Satan should not be beating us in this arena but he is, unfortunatly. I am finding a hard time finding the styles of music I enjoy but that edifies my Spirit. It really stinks, actually.
It’s actually caused conviction in my heart and I have been provoked to start making music of my own. Paul Farnham, before he left, prophesied over me that I would be playing an instrument soon. This was a little comforting considering that I have been praying about picking up guitar again (I haven’t played for 10 years).
The truth is, the reason why we don’t have great music that is inspired by the Holy Spirit is because we aren’t taking initiative. It’s pretty stupid. We complain about how crappy Christian music is and then we don’t create anything ourselves. Anyway… someone buy me a guitar and then hold me accountable for the blog I have just written.
Filed under: End Times, House of Prayer, Intimacy with God, Jesus, Joel's Army, Leadership, Maturity, Prophecy
So many of my girls are leaving today. I will miss them so much! Abigail and Nichole are staying for tracks 2 and 3, however. Abigail is the sister of Sara Edwards, a nightwatch worship leader. She is an amazing girl and very mature for her age. I love to see the gift of leadership combined with her meekness. Nichole basically got saved while she was here. I’m so excited about the things God has in store for this girl. She had to make a lot of hard decisions while she was here and she was willing to give God all of her heart even when it was so difficult. What is also exciting is that she has made a decision to move here and be in FITN and afterward go to FMA. I feel like a proud mama.
Amber is a sweet girl from Alabama and I have seen such a transformation from her. God has really shaken everything that can be shaken in her life. I’ve seen her in tears several times and I have to kind of giggle to myself when she makes comments like “I’m so terrified about living in the tribulation! I just pray to Jesus every day that He’ll electrocute me before I have to live through it!” I explained to her that if she continues to draw closer to the Lord every day that she will be ready when all of this happens on the earth. True lovers will die for the ones they love without question.
Amy and Christine are my little seers. I am amazed by the gift God has given them and the great maturity I’ve seen in their hearts as they impart this gift in the correct manner. The things God has done to bring healing into Amy’s life has been super fun to watch. The Lord has a big assignment for her. I’m postive of it.
Rebecca is a typical Mary of Bethany (as atypical as this is). Her heart is so positioned to love and receive love from Jesus. I love to watch her worship because the love on her face is so evident. She has plans on coming back to IHOP after she graduates. This does not suprise me one bit. The girl rocks.
All of my girls are awesome but these are the stories that really stuck out. Way to go Jesus!
