Set the captives free

“ ....I don’t care.... ill curse god as many times as I want to! Let Jesus die 5 more times on the cross... and die 5 times again! Keep dying!”

“No, no don’t say that, you don’t want to keep crucifying Christ with your sin... please! just repent, god will forgive you. Lord...lord! have mercy Jesus have mercy!”

“No I don’t care about Jesus! Look at my eyes, do you see God in them?? That’s right... because I don’t worship God. I worship Satan. He protects me and he keeps me alive.”

“Satan wont help you, he’ll only hurt you... that’s a lie! God is the one giving you the grace to live each day.”

“God doesn’t give me grace, the demons give me grace. You don’t know how many demons I have living inside of me. woman, you don’t know what ive been through. Ive been raped twice, abused, beaten, mistreated my whole life, and been livin on these damn streets for years! youll never know what its like.” * lifts up her shirt to show us her abuse marks on her stomach*

-------------------

at that moment I realized—wow, she’s right. I really don’t know what its like... lord.... oh god.... please help me understand lord. my heart completely broke because I realized how much emotional trauma sherrie had to endure. Not having a place to live and having to sleep out in the streets with no shelter or comfort every day is bad enough, but being mistreated and abused on top of all the other junk, and being manipulated against her own will... must be so painful. These homeless people aren’t just home less—they are emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually afflicted severely. I cant even imagine what its like to be tormented by demons... but the whole atmosphere of skidrow reeks of them... at skidrow, truly you begin to realize how much Satan is like a roaring lion, preying upon people to devour. he walks the streets of skid row as if he owns them... skid row is his territory.

-----------------------

Right then we saw the urgency of her situation and all encircled around her to pray to cast out any demons that were inside of her and she began resisting us and fighting god. but after 1 minute of prayer she completely broke down and started crying on her knees. The hard calluses of her heart had shattered and she realized not only how broken she was, but how great her need for redemption was.
Tears were streaming down her face like a river.

and god told me ,
“she just wants to be loved”
and my heart felt so overwhelmed, because I began to feel the excruciating emptiness that gnaws inside of her heart every night she needs to sleep on the streets, the pain she experiences for wanting to be loved but feeling unworthy of true love and respect—
and so I came to her and I hugged her.

“Sweetie, you know you don’t have to live like this. those demons, theyre tormenting you. they are not helping you at all, and this is why you feel so oppressed because you weren’t made for satan.”
she looked at me, still with tears in her eyes but her eyes were softer now . “youre right...they are tormenting me...”

“you were made by god and for god. the holy god is supposed to live inside of you, and you are supposed to be a holy temple for god. not for demons. they don’t belong in you, you know that? and the God that made you, Jesus... he loves you. he loves you, and that’s why he created you... so that you could experience his love”

“he loves me...?”

amy then took her hand and said,
“shout jesus is lord! shout jesus is lord! confess that he is king!”

and sherrie all of a sudden said,
“Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord! Jesus, I love you!”

and she looked at us and asked, “ does this mean that... im saved?”

“yes, if you have accepted jesus in your heart and you believe in Him, then you are saved!”

“ I am? I am saved!! I am saved! when I said that, there was such a burst of joy in my heart that ive never felt before... the pain is gone... just so much joy... I am saved!”

and she began to cry and cry and hugged each of us and kissed us, telling us that she loved us.


praise god! this is our king! our god is mighty to save! I cannot express the overwhelming joy I felt seeing Sherrie come to the lord.
Jesus. this is the reason why I live. to see your kingdom come, to see your will be done, to see your glory revealed. Jesus. there is nothing else id rather do, and no place id rather be—than to know you and to make you known.
wow.... this is the life. this is truly life in its abundance-- to know you deeper and deeper lord and to make you known to the ends of the earth, all the days of my life!

True Love Waits

(org. written on Mar 28, 2010--In the process of transferring some old stuff i wrote in my xanga to my blogsopt ;])


I don’t know what it is, but God definitely has a weird way of telling me things through rings.


Maybe its because He knows my tendencies to fantasize about my future husband (like most girls do) :P

Maybe it has something to do with the symbolism of the ring, and what it ultimately represents—a lasting covenant, an eternal bond, a committed love filled with the depth of intimacy and long lasting years until the day of departure.

Whatever the reason may be, I would like to share a little bit of how God is/ has been using rings to communicate his message to me.

Please bear with me because I know this blog is very very long, but I assure you that it will be worth your time to read it through... so if you are willing to spend fifteen minutes to read through, please do! :]


*******************************

So flashback to 2 years ago, my junior year in high school...

During this time, me and my boyfriend were dating ( about a year and a half). But then when junior year hit, I felt God tugging at my heart and telling me that it wasn’t his will for us to be together. However, I ignored God’s prompting because I was selfish and stubborn, unable to let go of the foundation that I had built for almost 2 years, not willing to let my dreams come to a halting crash, and reluctant to let my well-built relationship with my boyfriend and best friend just die. Why God, why?

Then one night my boyfriend and I had a long, strenuous conversation. We were struggling with each other, and during our talk that night we slightly ventured upon the possibility of breaking up. We ended our conversation frustrated and depressed, and I sat in the shadows of room crying, extremely distressed. God, what do I do? I know what You want, but I don’t want to Lord, I really, really don’t want to let him go. Please help me.

Sometimes when I pray to God to help me and provide an answer, he will show directly me from his word. So I took out my bible, asking God to help me, and he brought me to Jesus’s sermon on the Mount.

...Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted...


Okay god, I know you’re with me. I know you’re comforting me in my time of distress. Please God, Please show me what to do. Show me your will.

However, I prayed this prayer in my heart, already sensing what God wanted me to do. This was more of a plead for god not to take him away from me. I urged for God’s will, yet I wasn’t completely open to it. Still God looked past my sin and remained ever so faithful, meeting me in the time when I desperately needed Him. I then flipped the bible open a second time, and surprisingly, he brought me to one of my favorite passages...

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 cor 13:4-7)



Oh my god.

No way did you just bring me to this verse god. No way.

And as I was reading 1 Corinthians over and over, I felt Him telling me—Joyce, this is true love. Do you have this with Anton? Does your relationship exemplify this love? I realized God had brought me to this passage to remind me of what the essence of true love was, and to help me to see that Anton and I were so far from it.

Okay god, okay, I get it.... now I realize that what we had may not even be true love, therefore it cannot last.... But God, please confirm your will with me. I am still not sure of what I should do.



But of course I knew. God had shown me plainly, yet in my blindness I didn’t want to see; I was still searching for more answers even when I knew that the answer had already been revealed to me. But I went to sleep in a state of relaxation, reassured from the knowledge that God wanted to comfort me and guide me. The next morning I woke up and went to the bathroom to wash my face. The horrors of last night’s conversation had just started to make its way back into my memory, but God’s love covered me in reassurance. I then looked over at my counter and saw a necklace neatly set aside. How strange, this necklace looks so familiar (little did I know that it was the same necklace my cousin had bought for my sister 5 years ago; it was one of those necklaces with a ring dangling from it.) So I picked up the necklace, trying to remember why it looked so familiar. Then I looked at the ring more closely, trying to see the words that were etched around the edges. What I saw etched on the ring brought me in total shock, I stood there literally staring at the ring for minutes without moving.



True love waits.

That’s what the ring said.

True love waits. I hadn’t seen this necklace for years, yet there it was, sitting on the counter. And without a doubt, this was a sign from god. I was now convinced that I needed to wait....for true love, for god’s perfect timing, for God’s perfect will. Indeed, it is good to wait on the Lord.


******************************

Now flash forward to a few weeks ago...

I was walking aimlessly in the Student Center one day when I accidently kicked something on the floor. I looked down to see what it was, and there it was—a ring. A very simple but elegant ring to say the least, but when I picked it up I felt like it was a ring given to me from heaven. When I slipped the ring on (which was the perfect fit), I felt God telling me that He gave me this ring to remind me that His covenant with me is lasting, and that his promises are very real. His love for me is eternal, and nothing can ever separate me from his love for our relationship is everlasting. I am His and He is mine, and I am His beloved that He died for and sacrificed His life for, and he holds my hand and leads me beside still waters and beautiful green pastures.

And as I was admiring the beauty of the ring and its message that god conveyed to me through such a simple act, I felt Him telling me—


Beloved,

Not only does true love wait (the ring I found 2 years ago), but

I Am your True Love.


Wow. That was deep....

God knew.

He knew my tendency for my heart to stray away from him in search of “the one” , a “true love” because I didn’t completely trust Him and his sovereignty, I didn’t have faith that He would bring the right person into my life at the right time so I felt the need to look for a man myself. But oh how God is so good and oh how he knows me so personally, knows the depths of my heart and all my thoughts even before I realize them myself. God, you are amazing. And I know you want to remind me of your love. I remember asking Him to constantly remind me of His love for me, and lo and behold, he provides a ring of assurance for me so that every time I wear it, and I reminded of God’s love for me and where my heart truly should belong—to Him and Him alone.

Thank you Lord for this precious reminder. I thank you because you are such a personal and detailed Father. Lord I know you are my True Love because no one under heaven or earth could ever, ever love me the way you do, or even come close to how immense your love is for me. A million words would not even be sufficient to express your love for each of us. Abba, Father, I thank you for always bringing me back to you.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you.

What can take a dying man, and raise him up to life again?

God is so amazing. for the longest time I was asking god,

"Lord, why is it so hard for me to accept your love?”


I want to accept his love, but everytime I hear that he loves me, I always cringe inside and shrink away. When he tells me that I have a pure heart, that he loves my voice, or that I am lovely, that he is proud of me... I have such a hard time accepting what he says... I almost want to deny that it is true (or I actually do). This feeling of rejection is partially imparted or self-instructed because I feel unworthy to be loved, that I shouldn’t be loved and that there is nothing about me that God should love. All I can see is my sin and the ugliness, the darkness inside of me—and knowing the chaos of iniquities inside my heart convinces me that I cannot be loved, that I should not be loved. When I see my sin unfold in my life, I do not come to god—I hide away from shame because I do not want to be loved. The magnitude of my sins overwhelms me to the point where I am drowning without cognizantly recognizing that there is air to breathe where the surface of the water breaks. For a time I had been aware that I was making my sins to be too great, and making the cross to be way too little... but I didn’t know how I could change that and fully live the truth of the gospel out.


I had been asking the Lord that question for quite a while now... and he had been revealing the answer to me little by little, never giving me the full revelation behind my question. A few things he had told me was—I had lost the child-likeness I had before where I would trust and believe whatever he would tell me. I have lost the longing expectancy I used to have for him as the bride waits for the bridegroom, even fallen out of love with him, my eyes no longer fully set on Him and Him alone...
one night he told me,

Joyce you want to love others and you want to love me more, but how can you do either when you do not let me love you first?

I was broken.
how Lord?? How do I let you love me god?


I know I build a lot of walls around my heart...because my heart is so inclined to want to be loved—and because I am fully aware of this—I try to harden my heart so I wont always feel the need to be loved. consequently, hardening my heart in that way and rejecting love and wanting to feel independent from anyone or anything also hardens my heart from the ultimate Lover, the one who lavishes so freely. I cant really pinpoint specific points in my life where my heart was hurt, but perhaps I also hold offense towards God as well?

---

whatever the reason, this past weekend God showed me why he didn’t fully reveal to me why the condition of my heart was that way. But he came to me in such quiet humbleness, in sweet tenderness, in loving kindness and told me that it was not up to me to change myself... he told me that he would to give me new garments to wear, that I didn’t need to live in the identity of the old that I had been clinging on to. He gave me the solution, he didn’t point more to the problem. He didn’t accuse me, didn’t charge me for rejecting his love, didn’t even resent me for wanting other things, didn’t even give me the full blown in-your-face anaylsis of the hardened condition of my heart and why I cant accept his love. No... all he told me was that He would give me a deeper revelation of the Lamb, the lamb that was slain for my iniquities.

He reconfigured and realigned my identity in him... that I AM his beloved, I am his princess. He took off my rags of unworthiness and sorrow and clothed me from head to toe in glistening white garments of praise and purity. I may still not know why I had such a hardened heart, but I am convinced that the Creator of heaven and Earth can take any heart of stone and melt it so that it becomes a heart of flesh.

cold winter blue

cold winter blue skies enter
and
chase away the warm sun--
the light of day.
the season changes from warm to cold, from life to death.... is this a new time for renewing what was lost? or losing what once was?

should it be
thought of as the sun entering into its rest,
or should it be
thought of as the cold overtaking the sunlight of life?
should it be
peace in knowing that the sun will rise again, that there in the death of the barren snow there comes a renewal, a restoration of life in the next season--


or do i see
the winter?

intercession for the transgressor-- day 33 of 40

"Recently I was meditating on the beauty of Christ’s intercession or, should I say, the beauty of his brutal and bloody work on the cross. There was nothing about his life that was sterile, painless, and plastic. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, but for the joy set before Him of the harvest of souls, he endured the cross and despised the shame. Christ was an intercessor.

The difference between prayer and intercession is that in intercession we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. We walk the Via Dolorosa. We bear the reproach. Our death becomes the highway upon which the captives walk over to freedom.

A few years ago, one of our leaders had a dream. In the dream, a prophetic father was speaking with me and before us stood a great field with brush and thorns. Beyond the field was a great field of splendid wheat. He said to me in the dream, “The harvest is guaranteed if you can make it through the thorns.” Jesus made it through the thorns on His head for the joy set before Him. May we continue through the thorns for the guaranteed harvest!"

-Lou Engle


wow... to be an intercessor like Jesus... is so humbling to think about. He paid it all, he suffered and endured through everything. and if christ is our example, we too must give it all. this is the life of an intercessor. Suffering is written in the blood of those who fully give their lives to Christ, but joy evermore and everlasting is found at their right hand.
Jesus make me an intercessor for your namesake.

day 30 of 40-- Living a lifestlye of prayer that moves mountains (part II)

“And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.” (Mark 3:13-15)

Reflection: Our prayer must not only move God to action, but our prayers must also move us to action. Mark 3 tells the story of Jesus calling His disciples. The first reason He called the disciples was so they might “be with Him.” The first call of prayer is to “be with Jesus.” But the result of the disciples being with Jesus was that they were sent to preach the Gospel with power. We must not be satisfied with our prayer meetings unless there is a sending that happens once we’ve been with Jesus. Our prayer life must result in our lives demonstrating God in power and love. Too many times we continually ask God to do what He has already commissioned us to do. Our prayer meetings become huddles that never require movement from us. Many times God responds to our prayers by equipping and empowering us to be the very answers to our prayers. But in order for those prayers to be answered we must be moved to action. God has anointed us with the Holy Spirit for a reason: so impossible situations will bow the knee to Jesus. The Bible says that the heavens belong to God but the earth has been given to man; we need to take responsibility over what is ours.


If we’re not careful, our prayers can become cries for revival in the distant future and not doorways to revival in the present. Jesus gave us authority over demons, sickness, disease, and darkness so we could bring His reality to earth right now. But our prayers must move us to action if that authority is to manifest. While we must continue to have prayer meetings where we cry out for God’s Kingdom to show up, there must be times when we step out and see God’s Kingdom show up through our lives.


Prayer: Jesus, we want to be sent by You to touch a lost and dying world. You have given us authority on the earth to see Your Kingdom come and so we pray that You would give us the courage to become the very answer to our prayers. May our prayers not only stir the heavens, but may they stir our own souls to move with You as You move on the earth.


www.studentrevivalmovement.com

day 30 of 40

" If added power attends the united prayer of two or three, what mighty triumphs there will be when hundreds of thousands of consistent members of the Church are with one accord day by day making intercession for the extension of Christ’s Kingdom.”

(John R. Mott)