Hey mates! **I apologize now for how long this blog is going
to be. But I promise it’s a good
read :)** Can you believe I am
entering week 8 of my DTS and I’ve been off USA soil for 9 wks!?!? I can hardly
believe it. September has been so
impactful and the speakers have really brought the Word to life. We recently covered Relationships,
Evangelism, and Spiritual Warfare.
This week will be Lordship and I have already been warned about the
speaker. It sounds to me that he
will be very blunt, not sugar coating anything, and very straightforward. (Exactly how I like it!!) But back to these past couple of weeks…
It’s become so evident to me that anytime we are not
speaking with love & humility (God’s standards), we are partnering with the
enemy by choosing to be prideful and selfish. Our words are so powerful. The enemy knows that, but do we!?! I had no idea the power I
had in my every day speech.
Proverbs 18:21 states,
“The tongue can bring death or life; those who
love to talk will reap the consequences.”
There is no middle ground. When
I had a revelation of this, I was determined to not give the enemies any help
or allow them to have any input on my word choice.
I say ‘enemies’ because satan is only one person and chances
are he isn’t tempting me, but probably some guy or gal holding great power and
authority. (Which is why we should
pray for Obama and other world leaders).
That being said, his workers are the ones most likely tempting you and
me.
Moving on… the devil and all of his workers have NO weapons
or power over those in Christ Jesus.
When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them the “keys” to His house and
glory. They loved freely and
carried no shame. When the enemy
came to them, he deceived them into eating from the one tree they were told not
to. When they believed the lie and
acted upon it, they gave the “keys” to the enemy. In order to get the “keys” back, a man had to come and die.
Why did it have to be a man? Because a man gave it away. Why
did He have to die? Because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). So as a result,
“God made him who had
no sin to be sin for us, so that in him
we might become the righteousness of
God” (2 Cor 5:21).
The “keys” are given to those who believe and chose Jesus
Christ as their Lord and Savior.
We can be confident and joyful in this!
“You were dead because of your sins… Then God made you alive
in Christ, for He forgave all our sins.
He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by
nailing it to the cross. In this
way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over
them on the cross” (Colossians 2:13-15).
We hold the “keys” and we no longer have a sinful
nature.
“I am the living One. I died, but look – I am alive forever and ever!
And I hold the keys of death and the grave” (Revelation 1:18).
You do not need to
classify yourself as a ‘sinner’ any longer! Isn’t that so cool?! To many people (myself included up
until a week ago) would constantly say, “you know it’s just because I’m
sinner” That is a lie that you’ve allowed yourself to believe. As Christians,
“we know that our old
self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6)
Sinner is no
longer in our identity. Sure we
may still sin, but that is not who we are. Isn’t that good news!!
Again, the devil and all of his workers have NO weapons or
power over those in Christ Jesus.
We hold the power and that is why… satan doesn’t try to tell you how
powerful he is, he tries to convince you that you’re not. Take ownership of who you are in Christ
and be confident in the fact that you are strong in Christ Jesus.
Every thought that enters our minds can be one of the three
sources: God's, the enemies, or ours.
If it’s from the enemy throw it out and don’t act on it. It’s not a sin to be tempted, but how
you deal with it could be.
Thankfully God is our protector because we know we can’t do this on our
own. If we didn’t need protecting there
would be no use for a protector, but we do need that protection.
These past few weeks have been inspiring in so many
ways. I hardly recognize myself
and I mean that in the best way possible.
God is cutting through all the lies and junk that was covering up my
true identity. For example, the
things that would normally bother me don’t anymore because I am living with so
much peace. God is revealing who I
am in Him. I must say, it is so
exhilarating to believe that He would do all of this out of His great love for
me. It’s a saying here that, “I’m
God’s favorite” And so are you!
For the first half of DTS we had been under “open heart
surgery” as our leader once accurately described to us. We saw what was broken, we needed to
forgive and repent, we needed healing…but now is the time to be built up! It’s as if all the dead weeds were
pulled out and now it’s time to lay down the seeds – Seeds that will produce
fruitful plants. Thank you to
those praying and helping me financially.
I am growing so much in the Lord here. The knowledge and truth I had in my head is turning into
heart knowledge. You can know
something or you can know something.
I know who I am in Christ and with every passing day I am confidently
believing it and living it. By God’s
grace alone, I am loved fully.
Part II: God's Given Me Power To Heal
Here is a snippet from my journal that is definitely worth sharing with you all.
" 9-8-14, Fiji outreach meeting is about to begin and I have quite the headache. On the way to my room (to grab something for tonight) Alycia and I pray time and time again. We discussed briefly the line between trusting God to bring healing naturally and when to take medicine. This time, I refused to take ibuprofen. Our meeting came to an end 1.5 hours later and one of the students, Efraim asked our friend Emily if we should pray for her hip. Instantly Alycia and I make eye contact and without saying a word we realized that my headache was gone! Immediately we (Alycia, Sarah & myself) jump up to pray for Emily's hip. After the prayer, Emily sat on the floor and moved in different positions to see if her hip still hurt....it didn't! She immediately started moving in positions that she hasn't been able to do pain free in 5 years due to gymnastics. Oh the joyful tears that flew! {Headache gone. Hip Healed.} God was not done there. After moments of loud excitement to God our Healer, we began to say, "Where is Hannah Taylor?" What God reveals, He heals and He was going to heal Hannah T. We ran into the room where the East Timor outreach was and thankfully they were done meeting. Sarah, Alycia, myself and now Emily very loudly expressed to her that God was going to heal her right now. We placed her feet up on a chair to see that her right leg was an inch shorter than her left. This has caused her back pain, hip pain, neck pain and pain all over really. We began to fearlessly pray and within less than a minute of thanking God for His love, commanding the sickness to leave and for light to take over - we opened our eyes to see that her legs were exactly the same length. Alycia and I, (along with the others) burst into the air screaming about what just took place. Completely blown away Hannah began to cry with relief. One by one we prayed for others. Another friend had swollen lymph nodes and they decreased to half their size. Not everyone was healed physically, but we were all witnesses that our God loves and to be in Him is the best gift we can receive."
Even though that night of healing was amazing, it's not to say that having revelations of who we are or the things we are learning in lecture is any less exciting. God heals in so many different ways and each way is powerful!
"Last
night a group of students ran into the lecture room saying God told them
to pray for healing for me, that He was going to heal me. I said they
could pray, and showed them my legs. The right one was about an inch
shorter than the left. They began to pray and when they stopped my leg
had grown an inch! God is good all the time, and last night he healed
me. The fact that my legs are now even means no more knee, back, and
hip pain!! Praise The Lord!!"
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