29. Action Items 11.17.19

29. I was having a nice chat with one of my friends the other day. It led her to ask me to do a post that would describe the actionable items that a person can do to be closer to the Lord God Almighty and our Savior Jesus Christ. She provided me with some insight as to how my posts give hints through scripture, and through my stories, but they don’t really give a step one, two, three of what we can do as human beings to be closer to The Lord.

The answer to this is a tricky one because the Lord is going to reach everyone in an individual way. However, it all starts with one basic principle. You have to start by believing that Jesus is your Savior and that he died on the cross for you because he loves you.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 5:24 - Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

So basically Jesus as the Son of God Almighty abandoned his divine status and came down to earth as a human in a physical body just like yours and mine. Jesus’s ministry was then empowered by the Holy Spirit. That same Holy Spirit is what brings you into a closer relationship with Jesus and the Lord God Almighty. Jesus died so we can have a relationship with Him. So that we can have the God connection that everyone craves. Jesus already died for you to have that years ago. The same ministry that was inside Jesus is inside each and every one of us. Stop searching for what you already have. Embrace it and condition yourself to make better choices everyday to strengthen that relationship.

John 14:26 King James Version (KJV)
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 King James Version (KJV)
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

The next component would be to read the word every day and to find yourself a body of believers to be connected to. It doesn’t always have to be a brick and mortar church. It could be as simple as a small group in your home, people you found online, preachers you watch on TV or Facebook. I was lucky enough to have Erik lead me to Grace Community Church in Uniontown but I’ve also been blessed to visit many different Holy Spirit filled churches with the Set Free Ministries team, and I’ve enjoyed my time in all of them. Find a church to call home. I would highly encourage that action. Even if you feel you don’t belong or feel as if you’re being judged, I suggest you push through those feelings and attempt to look for a church that makes you feel at home.

Once you get to this point, the Lord is going to start working inside of you. He will take ahold of your life and do what He wants in your life based on the effort you put in. He loves you but just as you love two of your children the same, the one that puts in the effort and wants a relationship with you will be closer to you than the one that you only see on Holidays and at Funerals. Get my drift?

Luke 14:33 King James Version (KJV)
33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

It doesn’t say in that scripture go do whatever you want because Jesus loves you and everything will be peachy. It says forsake all that you have.

Forsake - definition
renounce or give up (something valued or pleasant)

So what do we have to give up? All sin. Yep all of it. Even the ones you like and enjoy. We have to give up everything that the flesh lusts over. Everything. Even if it was the one thing that you feel kept you sane or helped you cope with stress. Every addiction has to go. Every bit of pride, jealousy, anger, unforgiveness, resentment, lust, etc.. all has to go. All of it out. Give it up to be closer to the Lord God. I can tell you first hand that it’s worth it.

Another scripture we can look at again would be James 4:7 - Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Submit - definitions
1. accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person.
2.subject to a particular process, treatment, or condition.

Resist - definition
withstand the action or effect of.

Withstand - definition
remain undamaged or unaffected by; resist.
offer strong resistance or opposition to (someone or something).

All of those are actionable items so to speak. Submit to the Lord God and his will for your life. We have to be vigilant to resist and withstand attacks on our body, mind and soul from the enemy on the daily. We have to guard ourselves, our minds and emotions. We must meditate on the promises of the word and speak the word audibly over our lives.

Next comes the inner healing/deliverance and how they come in to play. Inner healing/deliverance has multiple components. It’s not just a quick prayer and boom you’re golden. It conquers a lifetime of sin and hurt. A lifetime. It targets sins committed against you by others and also sin committed by you that affected others. For inner healing and deliverance to occur we first forgive those who have hurt us, confess our sins, break soul ties, break generational curses, deal with witchcraft we’ve been exposed to, break curses spoken over ourselves by others and curses we’ve spoken over ourselves, and finally cast all this garbage out. Once the garbage is out, we can heal. So how does it come out? Mostly it comes out as coughs, burps, yawns, involuntary spasms that cause things to move up and out of your mouth, sometimes they go down your arms and out of your hands, or can go down your legs out of your feet. Sometimes you’ll feel lifting off of your shoulders or mind. Once you’ve gotten rid of the garbage and you’ve shaken your suitcase out at the feet of Jesus, then we can successfully pray for healing and restoration. I’ll be doing more posts that dive into that importance here in a bit but honestly, inner healing and deliverance are a huge part of resolving past hurts, healing once and for all, and moving on in your relationship with Christ.

Well Ash, I go to a church and I’ve been going to church for years and nothing has changed. I’m still miserable, bitter, hateful, jealous, prideful, drinking, smoking, gossiping and saying negative things all the time. Church doesn’t change a person. Well, Nay Sayer, I say to you, you’re very right. The only thing that will change you, really change you, is your relationship with Jesus Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Once you feel the love of Jesus and begin to see everyone in the world like you’re looking through the eyes of the Lord, everything changes.

Well Ash, I’ve been water baptized and I’m saved and I believe in Jesus so I’m good. That speaking in tongues Holy Spirit crap is nonsense. Well, Nay Sayer, I say to you that your relationship with Jesus will save you, but it won’t help you walk in a greater victory and anointing here on earth without Jesus providing you the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Bible won’t come alive to you without it. Sorry it just won’t. That was paramount to my relationship skyrocketing with the Lord. It was key to me being able to understand what I read when I read scripture. It’s not just words. It’s life through words.

John 3:5 - Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Acts 4:31 - And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Acts 1:8 - But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

I didn’t receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit at my church. I never heard of it really, other than in scripture. To me, it seemed like something for Jesus and his disciples, not for regular every day people. They don’t really do altar calls for that at my current church. I’d been to a church of the Nazarene and a Methodist church and they don’t do that tongues stuff. I had no idea that was really a thing outside of Benny Hinn or crazy evangelist church people on TV. It was flat out scary to me. That began to change once I saw people doing it in church, right in the same building I was in, but it didn’t change for me right away. I thought it was weird or jibberish. I was spending time in the first Holy Spirit church I ever went to, and for over a year, I thought there was like a secret to being anointed. One I’d never be worthy to be a part of.

I honestly thought people went to that Jumonville cross church camp as kids and had some magic secret about being tight with The Lord God Almighty, that they came back speaking in tongues and that since I didn’t have that opportunity as a kid that I missed out on it. I didn’t even know that as an adult I could be baptized in anything but water. I’ll put a link in the comments to the video that brought the Baptism of the Holy Spirit alive to me in my own kitchen. No man or woman can baptize you in the Holy Spirit. We can lead you to receive it, but it comes from Jesus himself.

I’m not going to post the whole scripture but I encourage you to read 1 Corinthians 12. The whole chapter will outline it for you.

Lastly what I can recommend once you start going to church is to break it out in worship. Worship like a nut. When they are doing worship service and you feel your body moving, move. If you feel your hands lifting lift them. For over a year I was too scared to lift my hands. I was too undeserving to approach that altar for altar calls. Jesus had to come into church and set me straight on that himself. My insecurity and feelings of not being deserving or clean enough to approach that altar were overwhelming every time I was in church.

Want to know what hinders worship? It’s the Python Spirit. I’ll post a video link in the comments to that piece of education also. That stinking python spirit wanted my hands down and me feeling just as bad leaving church as I did when I walked in. When I finally got rid of that thing and uncoiled and came out I threw up and it felt like my insides and mind were finally free.

I remember going to church and worship would start. Everyone would have hands up or be waving them and I’d have them like at my waist. I’d put them on the chair in front of me. I’d put my hands together like I was nervous and didn’t know what to do. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t raise my hands to the heavens. I remember distinctly seeing Jesus hold his hands out to me asking for me to reach them. He’d lift them higher and say to me “come on” and I’d go as high as between my shoulders and the top of my head and I’d stop. Like kind of keeping my elbows down and only raising my wrists and hands. Even with Jesus’s hands right there saying “come on, you can do it” I couldn’t and I felt shamed by the fact that I couldn’t. Something stopped me every time. Shame never comes from the Lord.

Same thing would always happen with the Altar calls. Pastor Harry would do an altar call and if Erik would walk me up, or if Leah would grab my hand and say come on, I’d go up. If I was by myself and Leah didn’t pull me up there, I was staying in my chair. I remember the Lord showing me a vision in church regarding going up for altar calls. It was an altar call that happened when I was pregnant with Nash. While everyone was up there, I saw this cleansing rain falling from the heavens. It only went where the altar was and maybe three or 4 rows back in the seats. I remember hearing “go up if you want cleansed” but being a fearful, lunatic full of perceived rejection and snuffed down by the stinking python spirit, I stayed in my seat. I wasn’t worthy of being cleansed. That stinking demon had me thinking I was too dirty for the cleansing from the Lord and that I didn’t deserve it. Nothing you ever feel that demeans you or makes you feel unworthy is never from the Lord.

The first time I actually went up for an altar call by myself with no one else, I literally had to follow Jesus up there. I was sitting in the back like I always do and pastor Harry did the altar call. I remember people walking up and I remember turning to my right and seeing Jesus and his robe. He was heading up the isle to the altar and he said to me “If I was flesh and blood here in this church walking up, would you hold back from following me up there?” No, of course I’d follow you Lord. “Well, lets go, Ashley”. I was convicted like a child and up I went with my tail between my legs. Ever since that moment, I go up no shame.

Once I truly experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, among with deliverance and inner healing, I have been a completely new person inside and out. I feel completely healed. With me being 36 and finally feeling free, free from depression, anger, rage, fear, perceived rejection, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, with me finally feeling like a normal person with a normal brain, I’m not staying quiet about this. I have to help other people experience this. It is my mission.

My favorite thing to do now is follow the Holy Spirit in worship service. My hands go up and are led by the Holy Spirit. My effort of raising my hands to meet the hands of the Lord God coming down from heaven is my action item. Think of the Holy Spirit as a hallway to the Lord God. Your hands go up reaching through that hallway toward the heavens and at that same time the Lord God is reaching down to meet you through the connection of the Holy Spirit. Embrace worship, embrace the word, experience deliverance and inner healing and be the person the Lord God Almighty designed you to be. He makes no mistakes.

Experience the fruit of the Holy Spirit in every aspect of your life.

Galatians 5:22-23 King James Version (KJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

It doesn’t matter where you start, but start today.