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!
Yesterday was a fasting day. I was in the prayer room during the 4-6 set, taking in all the sights and sounds of a few hundred Jesus lovers gathered to cry out for mercy and pour their hearts out at His feet. I took note of my posture as I was observing the Lord moving on various people in the room. Standing up, I had one hand in my pocket and another grasping an Ozarka water bottle. For a brief moment I had a flashback of myself in this same physical posture at a show in perhaps Dallas or Little Rock, a Bud Lite or a Heineken in hand enjoying the idolization and glorification of the talent of human beings… not to mention the seduction of rampant immorality in these bars and clubs.
Now, I do have to mention that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having fun and enjoying an art form. I have been to shows that have actually inspired me to love God more (though these were performances by Christian bands) and it wasn’t just words but music that awakened something in me.
I think of King Herod in Acts 12 “On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a mere mortal.” Immediately , because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.”
Not that audiences in most concerts are shouting at the muscians “You MUST be a god!” (though I have to mention that some of them do scream things similar to this), but the majority of bands are completely idolized for their talent. If you think about the hundreds of women (whom most of the musicians take advantage of) that follow them from town to town, this might conclude some of your questions. What about the posters plastered all over the walls of teenage bedrooms? These kinds of things don’t happen to normal folks.
What I love about IHOP is that when outside people visit, more often than not, most of the people don’t have any idea who is playing on stage. They haven’t come to oooh and ahhhh over the musicians (though they might respect the gift God has given them), they have come to seek the living God.
Filed under: Art, Fear of the Lord, House of Prayer, Prophecy, Purity, Sin, Spirit of the Age, The Arts
It has been a somber yet clear and beautiful day after Mike’s exhortation yesterday during the staff meeting. Actually, I don’t know if exhortation is the right word… but I’m very grateful for Mike’s leadership and I’m grateful for the leadership of the Holy Spirit who prompted Mike to give this word of correction. There is nothing more destructive to the body of Christ than sexual immorality. It not only affects our own hearts but it affects the hearts of those we love. Trust me on this when I say that it can absolutely DESTROY the hearts of those that you have made vows with.
One thing, specifically, that I felt the Lord highlighting in my heart was the secular media. I have felt the pang of guilt as I watched a show on TV or watched a movie that was not particularly pure. Why am I watching something that Jesus would clearly frown on? We can make all the excuses we want by saying that we can’t seclude ourselves from the world and “we are in the world but not of it” but the truth of the matter is Jesus might go to a movie if it were today but He definitely wouldn’t sit through a bed scene or laugh at the raunchy humor of an effeminate charector. He wouldn’t consider a promiscuous couple to be “cute”. He wouldn’t embrace wickedness like we do when we let ourselves be entertained by it.
Art and film are beautiful things. I LOVE a well-made, well-written film. That’s why when the Lord started speaking to me last night during the meeting, things began to click in my head. Consider this a prophetic word… blog-style. Once we take the position of severing our connection with wickedness and embracing righteousness… God will honor it. How will he honor it? By filling the void that we think we have with divinely-inspired creativity… which can only be the best kind of creativity. I don’t think the believing community has done a great job with asking the Holy Spirit for ideas for higher-level artistic expression. It’s already inside of us, we just need to tap into it. IHOP has been prophesied over that we will be producing films… so let’s start believing God’s promises about this and not use the world for inspiration. Let’s use Him!
Filed under: Biblical love, Dating, Purity, Spirit of the Age, True Beauty
A couple of years ago I broke up with this guy for several reasons. A) he wasn’t a believer B) I wasn’t all that attracted to him C) our personalities clashed… A) being the most obvious reason I broke up with him.
A few months after, this guy started dating someone else. He began giving her all kinds of attention and I think at first, he was dating her to make me jealous. The result? I DID get jealous. It absolutely ate me alive to see them together all the time. It wasn’t that I even liked him anymore (however much convinced I was that I was still in love with him) it was just that I wasn’t getting showered with attention like I had been before this other girl came along. Previously, he had tried everything in his power to keep us together and now he seemed to be moving on… without me. While this went on I managed to make some rather stupid choices and DID get his attention back a few times just so that my ego could be stroked. It wasn’t a healthy situation and I regret stringing him along immensley. Afterall, I have been in the “other girl’s” shoes before as well and it is a very painful place.
Why are we women like this? Why do we insist on competing over male attention? Why is it such a big deal when we have the focused eye of the creator of the universe upon us? Shouldn’t that fill us with more satisfaction?
Just something I’ve been pondering today…
Don’t ever leave Forerunner Bookstore without purchasing this CD. If you want anointed, honest, vulnerable music with ACTUAL artistic value than this album is almost like heaven. I almost feel like my head could explode any minute because I’ve been looking everywhere for something this good that doesn’t completely defile my Spirit.
My jaw keeps dropping with every progression. I’m actually buying this CD for my brother for Christmas in hopes that he will fall in love with Jesus as he listens to it (I’m planning on anointing it with oil and praying over it… hee hee). Apparently, the last song of the album, entitled How He Loves has claimed to bring many people to Jesus. Nothing works better than prayer though. Not even John Mark McMillan.
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.
Filed under: Friendship, Life in General, Spirit of the Age, Spiritual Warfare, Worship
It sometimes feels like my life has had musical milestones or signposts. Music has always been such a big part of my life. My dad was tone deaf but was a passionate music lover and my mom, on the other hand, led worship at our church so she had plenty of musical ability.
I’ve been putting my CD collection on my itunes the last few days… some of the CD’s I haven’t listened to in years and so when I put them in my CD Rom and play them I feel like I’m back in some weird time portal. It’s amazing how easily some music can put you into a certain mood and can conjure up all sorts of memories.
When I lived in Little Rock, from about the ages of 18-22, we had a local pop-punk band there called The Kicks (formerly Ashtray Babyhead). I use to LOVE this band and would go to a show of theirs at least once a month. I still have their CD’s one of which I had to peel the sticker off the front because the band thought it would be funny to put a pentagram on the cover. But it wasn’t just the band that brought back memories it was the people I would go to the shows with, the relationships I was in and how I related each song, at that time to different aspects of our relationship. Memories of us driving down the road singing at the top of our lungs, making funny gestures at eachother…. even, I have to admit, “air drums” in which friends would mimic the beats, thinking they might actually look cool and know what they were doing. I have to admit this music also brought painful memories, moments that I haven’t thought of in a long, long time from past romantic relationships. When I listened to this CD I was surprised at the places it took me. It was almost like this blackness would come over me
Music is a powerful thing. It exposes what’s inside the soul of the individual and draws them into even the emotional aspects of their lives. Music invites vulnerability and sometimes vulnerability coming from a darker place is not always very healthy and dare I say… evil? When a person is writing music and their soul is full of darkness then they are inviting you to enter into that darkness with them. When a person is writing music and their soul is connected to Jesus and their spirit and soul are full of light, they are inviting you to be connected with Jesus as well.
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.
