Snapshot: Seeing the Words

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God"                Romans 10:17

This verse essentially describes in reverse order the way that God progressively and tangibly guides us.  So, we read the Word, which is the bible, God's written word.  That's the first step--the step mentioned last in Romans 10:17, from which the other ones flow from.  God's word is an open door, and we need to read it to know Him better.  Then we hear from Him.  Usually hearing is a three part process--and these parts usually come in the following order:

1) The Word, the Bible, comes alive to us in a new way that relates more specifically to us.  A certain verse may jump out.  For example, I may pray for my family and right after read Luke 1:50.  The Word first begins to come alive in this way.

2) We receive from the Lord a vision that comes from, or by, the Word of God.  The Word of the Lord is often characterized in a vision.  This can be seen in Jeremiah 1:11 and Samuel 3:1.

3) The most evident form of hearing is just that--hearing the audible voice of God.  His audible voice differs from that still, small one.  It comes externally, from heaven itself.  It is like the sounds of roaring thunder or many rushing waters (Revelation 14:2)--majestic!!  This is a rarity, or at least it has been for me.  But that doesn't mean that it will be for you!  Whoever asks with purity receives...

So, these are three ways that God speaks to us--three ways that we hear.  They all flow from the words that are in the Bible, the Word of God.  The Holy Spirit makes that book so real!  And He wants to speak to us in all the ways above, and more.  Why does He speak to us?  And consequently, why do we hear His voice?

Because we are sheep that need to stay in touch with our Shepherd.  Because we need to know Him more.  Because we need the faith, the knowing, that cometh by hearing.  

How can we listen to God on a moment by moment basis if we don't hear Him accordingly? We need a revelation from the Word.  We need a vision.  We need a voice.  We need to have the Word made real and dynamic to us--made alive and active (Hebrews 4:12).

After we have faith from the hearing, that's when we can act.  That's when we can really live abiding in God.  That's when we can have success--our joy--guaranteed.  If God tells me to pray for someone who is sick, then I know He will do the work--which is usually a total healing.  If God tells me to smile at someone, then I know that it blessed someone, regardless if I see any results or not.  If I see in a vision while praying that someone I am not with is being healed, then I need to believe that!

I need faith because I heard God, and I need to hear God, in whatever way works, because I read His Word first.  Wigglesworth said, "consume the Word of God until it consumes you".  This is a place where you have heard and believed.

We need to see God's Word for what it is.  We need to see just what He's telling this.  He has given us so many gifts, and we need to step into the fullness of them all.  

How Many Messages?

When God speaks, He wants us to be sure.  He wants to give us confirmations, so that we can discern more easily what is of Him.  I've found that so many things God speaks are true on two levels.  So many of His quickened, personalized messages point at two different things.

"One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: 'Power belongs to you, God..."  Psalm 62:11

"For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it."  Job 33:14

"In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true."  John 8:17

In other words, God is faithful to interpret any of His words for us.  There is a fullness in any word, any direction, any conviction, that He gives!  These things are from God, and every gift He gives is perfect (James 1:17).    I think He enjoys speaking in double entendres.  Jesus spoke in parables!

I'll give a real-life example.  When God relays a theme to me, it may have both practical and spiritual messages.  Or it might describe both the present time and some specific moment in the future.  Or it might apply to myself, and to Vanessa.  The list goes on, but God seems to nearly always gives me messages in twos.  After all, the Word cuts both ways (Hebrews 4:12).  Praise Jesus for speaking to us!

But there is another voice out there.  The voice of doubt, fear, lies, confusion--call it what you want, I'll call it the voice of the enemy.  Anything that isn't for His purposes is against Him (Matthew 12:30).  This voice usually isn't a voice at all, but rather a dark web of half-truths that goes directly against the Love of God.  This is the third voice--if the first two are of God, then this is the voice of doubt and darkness that asks us, "Did God really say?"

If Satan had his way, we would fall into doubt to the extent that we no longer believed in God's goodness.  If the enemy convinced us of this lie, we would give up and be tempted to stop following God.

As an aside, "hearing" things other than the voice of our Lord doesn't mean you're crazy.  Jesus never said we wouldn't hear other voices (John 10:5), though He promised we wouldn't know or follow them.  We need to be close enough to our great Shepherd to identify His heart among all the chaos that the enemy would try to throw at us.

Anyways, my point is that satan has an agenda too.  he too wants to give us messages, and convince us of his beliefs.  he is also capable of planting ideas and impressing on us different things.  satan can work through much of the same things that God can, including God's word (just look at how Jesus was tempted in the desert).  The enemy, too, can give signs and leadings.  How do we know the difference between what he gives us and what is actually from God?   Praise God that there are a few clear distinctions:

1) Any message from God will be established by confirmations, and will often have more than one meaning in itself
2) Any message from God will be grounded in the Spirit of the Bible (God's Word)
3) Most of all, any message from God will be full of Love.  God is Love (1 John 4:8).  Now, within that Love might by exhortation or a warning to stay away from sin.  But God is full of love and redemption, and it is not His will to condemn anyone.

Messages from the enemy are often not confirmed, neither by signs nor by other Christians.  You usually have to be deep into fear in order to have Satan's lies perpetuated.  More on this in a future post.

In the meantime, know that God is the One that has created every good thing.  He is the one who has promised to guide us.  With discernment, we can have confidence that we're in position to receive from the Lord every message and parable that He'd have us receive.  Glory to God!

"Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights."  Isaiah 7:11

Snapshot: Unstuck

In church last week I saw the word, "Unstuck" written in a vision.  I felt an increase in His presence being poured into the church after that.  But we had to want it first!  This happened partway through worship.

Through this small experience I became more aware of the spiritual warfare that attempts to get between us and God.  In this case, there was a stoppage in place that we were allowed to break through.  Keep in mind there is a lot of spirituality between God and ourselves.  There is violence that interferes with us receiving the Kingdom of Heaven, and the violent take His Kingdom by force (Matthew 11:12).

Our confidence is important here.  When we press in to God we need to know and take courage in His ability to allow a breakthrough.  We need to be hopeful that He will give the Victory and send His Kingdom down to earth.   Those who hope in Him will not be disappointed. (Isaiah 49:23).  So we hope in Him, and He meets us where we are.  Without faith, we cannot please God, nor can we be sure of His presence.

But when we have faith, we come into alignment with God.  We come into alignment with the light, and we join in battle with Him and His angels.  We can use the sword of His Spirit to cut through any interferences that Satan would try to give us.  This is exactly what happened in Church.  Glory broke through, and the oil of His Spirit was poured out.

Confirmed:  A few days later I was listening to Christian radio.  They were talking about a new Christian book called, "Unstuck".  It's about forgetting past failures and trusting God for a brighter future.  It's about stepping out of spiritual darkness and walking into a new season of trust in God.  There are references to Elijah's cave experience.

So God is continually breaking through and giving of Himself.  And we often misuse this.  We don't always live in the Kingdom.  But let's step out of our past.  Let's forget what's behind so that our guilt does not keep us from pressing on towards the prize (Philippians 3:13).  Let's allow His presence and His VOICE to come down to us and change us.  Let's then walk into that new season and cling to Him so that we do not return to past mistakes.

Let's be clothed with His might.  He is counseling us to buy from Him clean garments (Revelation 3:18)  He wants to live within His Presence, where the wells of the Spirit are not delayed or blocked up.  He wants us to become more than conquerors and enter a place of abiding where we do not get stuck.  Let's seek Him to get "unstuck" right now.  And if God has done deliverance already, then let's cling to that and continue intimately walking with Him.

Rest Without Guilt

Today I woke up late and basically sat around for a few hours.  There wasn't much to accomplish, either inside our out, due to the rain and snow.  I was feeling pretty guilty about this, but to tell the truth I was enjoying the rest.  I had just found my kindle--it had been lost for a few days--so I decided to update myself on the Quickened Word website.

I found that the most recent Rhema Word really spoke to me.  Among the quickened phrases were things like, "Therapy couch.  Rest.  This is good for you."  What?  Yes, I felt God saying that this rest was good for me.  I kept reading the article:  "Grown men therapy.  Tinkering with their tools."  Here is that article.

That part really hit me...the author of this post is a lady who presumably doesn't use building tools much.  I was the one who had been having a little respite from work, away from tools (I'd been working with power tools recently).  So this spoke so strongly to me.  Glory to God, there is a fullness to His Words that is hard for humans, myself included, to conceptualize.

Confirmed:  Vanessa and I were also talking about this topic.  After of few days of little sleep, she slept nearly14 hours last night.  We were both pretty surprised by this.  A friend of hers had told her a few days before not to feel guilty for taking rest time.  Her sleeping seemed to validate that message.

Everything was coming together.  Resting is also a recurring guilt trigger for me, for a few reasons.  I still need at least 9 or 10 hours of sleep each night.  But I feel God saying, it's OK.  In fact, it's good.  God is so merciful, His staff gives discipline, but it also gives comfort.

Confirmed:  Even as I was writing the above paragraphs, I began feeling guilty.  I said, "God, what should I do right now?  Do you want me to be doing something else right now?  Should I be feeding the poor or something?  Should I volunteer someplace?" ...etc...I got pretty guilt motivated.  Doesn't God love us no matter what?  So the important thing is that we're willing to carry out His specific calling for us.  It is not by works, but by faith...God responded and spoke some things to my heart.  I believe this blog is, for me, a call to being faithful in little.  I wouldn't be doing this if not for His leading.

Anyways, immediately after I was saying this to God, my Father in law got a phone call in the other room.  He was talking to some company for a business call, and it went like this:

"Hello, Tom?  Is Tom available?"  I pictured that God was saying this to me.  In the phone call, Tom was indeed available.  And in the spiritual, I had just offered myself, again, as available to God.

The call conversation went on.  "You gave me your card, that's why I called you."  Once again, this talk was quickened to my ear as being from God to me.  I gave Him my "card"--after all, all the days of my life are written in His Book (Psalm 139:16).

So I remembered that when I gave Him my will, He had responded with a specific calling.  This calling has been quite an adventure so far.  HIS calling has in fact been "exceedingly abundantly" more than I could have hoped for (Ephesians 3:20).  Praise Jesus that He has called us to rest, as well.  He alone knows what we need.  If God is prompting us to rest, we need to take it!  We need to take it and use it for Him.

Truth Brings Deliverance

The first part of yesterday was rough.  I had fallen into doubt, and the truth was being pushed out by lies.  We were in Church, and parts of worship were great, but others were not.  I intermittently fell in and out of confusion.  God often gives me prophetic visions, but during worship, I kept seeing a bunch of visions that just didn't make any sense.  These visions were apparently random and did not bring upliftment nor directly point to God.  Worship didn't do what it usually does for me--I didn't feel any better afterwards than I did beforehand.  I still felt oppressed, and now I was feeling a lot of confusion because I felt like God was not in my mind.

I should also mention that a few days ago, God began speaking to me about deliverance.  I sometimes struggle with doubt, and for me, this doubt dilutes and distorts God's voice.  This oppression began when God first started to train me to hear from Him accurately, and since then I've struggled through lesson after lesson on the importance of receiving God.  I've learned that fear can make us falsely prophetic. Doubt, too, is also a dangerous thing.  If unchecked, it can even make me believe that God has refused to bring me to a safe place, salvation.  In referring to my own future deliverance, I heard God put it this way:  "No more will you hear the voice of the enemy and believe it".  That's a promise.  His sheep hear His voice, and they follow it.

Anyways, He told me, promised me, that my own deliverance from oppression and doubt would come soon.  This was two days prior to Sunday.  After the worship section ended, I began pleading with God that He would deliver me, and do so today!

Praise God that if our minds condemn us, even if our hearts condemn us, He knows whose seed we are of (1 John 3:20).  I was wrestling with God--or trying to--after worship ended, and He let me.  Suddenly I came our of the spiritual attack and my mind felt clear and renewed.  He began speaking to me, which I documented in my notebook as well as I could:

"Amidst a sea of doubt and confusion, set your eyes on Me.  Set your affection on Me.  Set your hope on Me."

He continued into more personal stuff, and the message was clear.  I got into trouble because I was not fixated on God!  Worship can be a very spiritual thing, and not every spiritual thing is good or worth thinking about.  The more the Lord shows me how to worship in His fullness, the more spiritual worship feels and becomes.  The deeper God takes me through worship,"in Spirit and in truth", the more boldly I need to focus on Him.  It's not enough to just worship in Spirit.  It's not entering into the fullness of God if we just worship in truth.  The combination of both brings in God's touch.

What God spoke to me after worship was the truth, His truth, and it set me free.  I was delivered from all my fears!  God is so good.  The Word he spoke to me was then confirmed as a lady went up to the front and shared a testimony.  She said several things that so validated what God had spoken to me, and my heart was truly set at rest.  Below are a few phrases that were so synchronistic to what I'd just received.  Most are rephrased because all this was very in the moment.

-Things that aren't truthful can't be figured out.

The visions I received during worship weren't truth.  As a result, I just couldn't figure them out!  God is a God of order, and the things He gives are meant to help us be set free.  Wow...this was a big learning lesson because it applied directly to all those seemingly spiritual, dark or random visions that were oppressing me.

-Jesus is the only answer, and we need to focus on Him

We need to focus on Him.  Look at what happened to Peter when he stepped out onto the sea, in faith, but later lost his focus.  Just like God told me right after worship!  Any other thing besides Him does not give us an answer.  Any other thing does not reply with the truth.

-No truth only "leads to confusion"

The wording this lady used was so synchronistic with how God initially answered me.  Praise Jesus!  Confused is exactly how I felt when I was spiritually attacked.  I had many spiritual things blocking out the truth, and I became pretty confused in trying to make sense of them.



The same Holy Spirit that gave me deliverance after worship prompted this lady to share testimony later in the service, and this same Spirit gave her and I similar human words and phrases to conceptualize spiritual truths.  The truth set me free, and by His grace God gave me confirmations so that I could continue in the faith.

How does God deliver us?  He gives us the Truth.  He gives us the revelation.  He gives us free gifts, and He accompanies these good things with faith to expand on them.  He allows us to go through oppressions so that we can call on Him.  We call on Him, and He answers us!  He answers us with deliverance.  Glory to God!  He gives us the truth and saves us from the enemy.  He gives us truth and saves us from all our fears.

"I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears."  Psalm 34:4

Electricity: God's Love

God is all powerful, and He shows Himself in symbolism.  If humans were to cease to praise Him, then even "the stones will cry out"  (Luke 19:40).  Wow!  Glory and Power and Honor belong to God!

"The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
 Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge." Psalm 19:1-2

Creation is testifying to God's personality, His might and His power. Thunder is, for me, a symbol of God's power.

"After that comes the sound of his roar; he thunders with his majestic voice. When his voice resounds, he holds nothing back."  Job 37:4

The voice of God is thunderous; it is a continual thundering like the "roar of rushing waters".  The presence of God accompanies and surrounds His voice.  This is the Spirit of the Lord manifesting Himself.  God has all power and all creation at His disposal.  And He uses His power to glorify Himself!  He wants us to "taste and see" that He is good.

To follow this analogy, if thunder, alongside electricity, symbolise God's Spirit, then we need to "plug in" to God to stay "charged".  We need to enter into God's glory, with mediation with His son, and refresh our spiritual batteries.  We need to be purified and draw near to the electric love of God so that "times of refreshing" can come to us.

Today God gave me a vision where I was taken into a giant lightbulb.  I instinctively knew that the inner coils represented the Holy Spirit in me.  The inspiration of these coils gave insight, truth, and creative witness.  In other words, the Holy Spirit makes "the light bulbs turn on" and brings together the truth within us.  I saw through the vision that the same Spirit gives many ideas and expresses Jesus in many different ways.  His power works as electricity, and He gives vibrant life to our inner beings.

The empty space within the lightbulb represented close surroundings.  The space around us is within the scope of this part of the lightbulb.  This space was filled with the presence of God.  My body was represented as nearest the inner coil (symbolizing the Holy Spirit within), though other things can come into contact with me, too.

Finally, the glass casing, or outside edge, of the glass bulb represented the fullest extent of our influence.  It represented the people and things we come into contact with.  More than that, this shell represented our spiritual territory.  Akin to a tent, this casing symbolized our outer circle of influence on those things around us.  God wants us to expand our tents (Isaiah 54:2) as a new measure of the Spirit is given.  He wants to give us more spiritual power for His namesake!

From the vision, I understood that the Lord wants His inner light to shine brightly in us.  He wants His presence to emanate through us, for our tents to be expanded and our casing to be pushed out.  He wants to include others in our blessings as He works through us.  As we allow Him to become an all consuming fire, His Spirit will give us new ways to glorify Jesus--new, creative ways to demonstrate God.  He wants us to bring others into the fold and use the power He's given us to feed His lambs.

Finally, nonbelievers outside of our area of influence should see the love of God reflected by our lives.  We need to have His passions and bear good fruit from Him, so that  they can see from the outside the Glory of God revealed, and long to come near it.  It is God's work to draw them in, but it is our work to shine brightly.  And we can obtain more of this electricity, more of this light from God, if we spend time "recharging" our spiritual batteries and getting filled with the Spirit.