The past few days have been a whirlwind for me in the spirit world. We sometimes look at those on a platform or those in ministry and think that they are this elite group of chosen individuals. We can get jealous or envious wanting what they have but we don’t realize what sacrifice and obedience it takes to get there. We don’t want to put in the time or effort. We don’t want to sacrifice our flesh, we don’t want to say no to the drink, or the drug, or the food, or sex that comforts us. The same goes for the world of the flesh. They see the you tube and Instagram stars, the doctors and lawyers, and they covet their houses, cars and vacations. Yet they don’t want to go to school and put in the long hours or years of hard work to get there. Everyone wants to get to the end and enjoy the rewards without going through the process and putting in the work.
It’s the process that refines us. It’s the process and our own individual free will, moment by moment decisions that make or break our advancement. Not only in the kingdom of Heaven but also here on earth. On earth as it is in Heaven. If we are faithful in little He will give us much. That’s been proven to me over and over again if you’ve been following these 130 plus blogs over this last year. I’m a walking example of this. I’ll give you another example right now where obedience and character in the little things, equal advancement in the big kingdom assignments given to us by our Father.
It started Friday with me doing bills. I ran out of stamps and needed one. I have stamps at work so the enemy ran the thought across my mind that one stamp would be fine. Of course in my heart I new that was wrong, so I cast that thought out and decided to get a book of stamps instead. Now my flesh didn’t want to go to the post office. My flesh didn’t want to put a mask on and go in the cold. My flesh wanted to just do the easy thing. I got stamps and used one I had bought. That was an act of obedience. That was a war against sin. See many of us don’t look at these little battles. We don’t bat an eye at leaving our shopping kart in the middle of the parking lot, or tipping our waitress poorly, or flipping someone off in traffic. Those are small battles. Do you win against the flesh or do you lose?
Then Friday evening I was chatting with Rose and I shared with her a pic of a crochet Bernie in mittens 😂. Her response was a sweet comment about loving little old men like just how cute. This one comment brought up this huge wave of emotions out of no where. See this is how the deliverance, sanctification and consecration process works for me. I am constantly being delivered. I am constantly dealing with wounds and trauma. When something is brought up to me by the Lord to deal with, I have to deal with it. In my mind I was instantly brought back to one of the trauma situations in my life. It was a big one that made me turn my back on God for a while. I was still harboring unforgiveness to the Lord that I had burried all the way back in 8th grade. I was harboring unforgiveness against my family members also. I had burried everything down so deep and thought I had dealt with it years ago. There’s a difference in dealing with something and something just fading away after a while. Little did I know, it was time to deal with it right there in the kitchen.
It was back when I was 13 and my pap died. He was the first grandparent that I ever lost. He was fun. He taught me magic tricks and how to find grasses in the yard that you could eat. He made me a little kid custom golf club and taught me how to drive balls. He was just pap. I remember him having surgery and these staples down his stomach. I remember going to see him after he was home and visiting and the last thing I said when I hugged him goodbye was “get better pap.” He said “I will kiddo”. I don’t remember if it was that night, or a day or so later but he ended up passing away. I remember being told how the staples pulled open and they called the ambulance. I had this horrible picture in my mind. I had been praying so hard for him to get better. I thought he would keep recovering. That was probably the first time I had begged the Lord to make someone better. I prayed so hard and then to hear that he died. I didn’t understand God. I didn’t have a church family to lean on for understanding. I didn’t have an understanding of life and death and Heaven and hell in the sense that I should have. I remember at his funeral no one was crying and I thought to myself why aren’t these people crying. Why isn’t anyone upset. It really hardened me. My grandparents were supposed to dance at my wedding one day. I just didn’t understand. My mom talked with me about it, but it was short. Unforgiveness crept in, I felt like life at that point was disposable and forgotten. That was about the same time in my life that I started listening to bad music, stealing, smoking weed, I turned my back on the Lord, started getting into Wicca and tarot cards, astrology etc. It was a spirit of trauma that wasn’t dealt with. It got in and held the door open. My free will actions kept opening other doors over and over again for the enemy. Once a few demons are invited in, they just hold the door open and invite all their friends. It’s up to us to close it.
So tears streaming down my face, in my kitchen, 25 years or so later, I’m repenting for holding unforgiveness against the Lord and my family. I’m relenting for opening doors and turning my back on the only true love I’d ever get to experience. I’m repenting for walking knowingly into sin, expecting mercy, grace and forgiveness to one day get me into heaven. I repented again for going after false religions. As I’m crying out, the Holy Spirit is pouring in. The Lord is pouring into my heart, healing all those cracks and wounds as I’m pouring out repentance and praise. I could feel things lifting and breaking off. I could feel a deeper peace. I could feel the freedom of letting something go that I didn’t even know I was holding onto anymore. This is why we don’t stop in deliverance ministry. We keep reading the word, we keep dealing with things, we keep healing so we can help others heal. If I had stopped the tears, not wanting to cry in the kitchen, if I had say no that’s old I dealt with that, if I had pushed it all back down, I wouldn’t have received the healing I needed. I’ve been through deliverance time and time again, things can hide deep. Never stop healing.
Now this is where it gets good. This is promotion with the Lord in response to obedience. Not only in dealing with that but in sowing a seed where the Lord asked me to as well. We have to be obedient in all the little things. Do we get grace if we miss it, yes, it’s not about works; but do we need to respect and fear the Lord, also yes.
So the next day a ministry friend messages in a small group we have asking for help with an issue. Now I have a ton of respect for her, we have met a few times and grew a lot closer over the mission trip. However I have never been to her home. I’ve never seen pictures of it. Well, she sends us a few voice messages about an issue with her son. As I’m listening to this recording, a movie starts playing in my mind. I see this picture of a room that’s either orange or a burnt red. I begin to see this black mist in the room. Then I start to see this dark figure coming out of the mist. It was so angry and disgusted with the prayer going on there. It’s face was one of those old western cow skulls that you’d see hanging at a ranch. He was tall and had broad shoulders and long arms but as it went to the floor it looked like an upside down triangle like there were no legs, it just dissipated into the darkness.
She replies in another voice message, that her sons room in their old house was orange and in a text reply that the figure that I’m describing is exactly what her son told her that he sees in his dreams. So I’m all revved up in the spirit and I’m on this demon hunt so I find this list of demons from demonology and I’m searching. The Lord leads me to google a bit more and I find info on Morax. So I send the pic but it says in the description “In demonology, Morax is a Demon, Great Earl, and President of Hell, having thirty legions of demons under his command. He teaches Astronomy and all other liberal sciences, and gives good and wise familiars that know the virtues of all herbs and precious stones.” So I’m thinking this might be off but the spirit felt like it fit so I send it.
Then she replies in another voice message that her son has a lot of space themed things in his room and did at that old house too, and, get this, that he collected stones and there was this one stone that was given to her son by a man. She felt off about it and the Holy Spirit convicted her to throw it away. Which was crazy to me. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing during this conversation. It was like I could see everything like I was there. Then another friend jumped in with info about prayer walking and they talked about principalities over areas. She also talked about her son dealing with things in school regarding the spirit of rejection.
Rejection is one of the most common things that the devil uses to keep Christians from being empowered, functioning, gifted members of the body of Christ. Perceived rejection, rejection, offense, jealousy, etc. all making people feel unwanted, superior or inferior. We need to keep our minds guarded and hold our thoughts captive. We are all equal in the body of Christ. Who would want us divided? Think about it, who was the original father or O.G. of rejection? The devil himself! He was the first one that ever experienced rejection. It never existed until he was rejected from Heaven. The enemy loves to sprinkle the spirit of rejection all over the place, it’s his favorite. It’s one of his seeds that yields the biggest crop of thorns that suffocates the body of Christ. It’s also one of the ones that we let run rampant in our congregations because no one calls it out as a demon.
So now we have identified the spiritual attack, called it by name, devised a plan of attack, and have talked about the emotional and deliverance healing aspects that need to be addressed. This is the work of the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. I love the way the folks I’m in ministry with flow in the spirit. We back off and take the lead as lead by the Father. Again this promotion came also in part from intercession. As Rose was walking she prayed to the Lord for me to be able to help while she was busy with other things. No one ever steps on anyone’s toes. It just flows as this flawless dance. That’s how you know it’s a Holy Spirit God thing. We may stumble, we may not always be right on the money, but we learn and grow by stepping out.
This is how the body of Christ is meant to work together. This is the supernatural aspect of ministry that is so easily discarded because mystics and ghost hunters run around tossing divination around. This is what praise, worship, fasting, praying, tithing, and being obedient can accomplish.
Then of course, after all this happened I was met with conviction and then attack. It always comes with promotion. Resistance from the enemy means you’re doing the right thing. Especially when you’re a seer. I’ve met a handful of people that see like I do and they all know. You have to see the bad to see the good. We don’t always like or want to see what we see but there’s purpose for it. We are in a war, everything we do spiritually is battle and warfare, like it or not.
I was immediately tempted to sin after that. I was kind of worn out in the spirit, like it drains you a little. I felt I had done a good job and I wanted to indulge in the flesh. I wanted Pepsi and snacks and crap tv. Nothing crazy, but I was going to watch shows I’d been convicted about watching before. The Lord really quickened me hard as the remote was in my hand. The words I heard were “If I took it all away, is it worth it?!”
Instantly I thought “No!” I tossed the remote across the room like it had Covid. I put the food away. I did drink the pop though but I dove into prayer instead of TV.
As I was praying into it, the Lord pressed upon my heart the lack of respect and fear that we all have for Him. Now, don’t get me wrong it’s not that we have to act like every sin or bad decision we make will completely separate us from Heaven; but how much better would our relationship with the Lord be, if we did? If we really prioritized the Lord in all we do. In how we speak, our actions, in our work, even in our play.
What if the amount of fear and respect that you have for the Lord is equal to the amount of grace and mercy that He will bestow upon your life? What shape would you be in?
We are so lucky that it’s not. The Lord is a god of abundance, grace, and mercy. Yet, He is also our judge. He judges our hearts and all of the small things that happen in the dark. He sees in secret and rewards out in the open.
Think about the sinner on the cross next to Jesus. The Lord knew he would never get down and evangelize. He knew that man would never proclaim the gospel on earth. He knew that man was only converting out of fear, and Jesus’s words were “today you will be with me in paradise”.
The Lord sees our hearts, he rewards the work that is put in. He rewards your dedication. Luckily the Lord is there for us either way. We can live out Heaven on earth right now by reading the word, applying it to our lives, fully submitting to the Lord and continually going through the sanctification and consecration process; or we can hang on till our death beds and bank on the ability to live in rampant sin waiting for a last minute death bed confession/salvation. The Lord is there for you either way. Think about it. Really think about your dedication to your eternity.
As I went to fall asleep last night I heard my name. Audibly loud, in this slow, gruff, dark tone that made me nauseous. “Ashley”. For a split second I was tempted to fear, but instantly the Holy Spirit brought to my remembrance a time that I was at a conference and it was prophecied over me that “the devil knows your name”. I was then reminded of the scripture when the disciples go to cast the demon out and it replies to them “Jesus I know, Paul I know, but you I do not know”. If you push to conquer warfare, you will have the enemy at your heels.
I’m ready devil, the battle belongs to the Lord.
Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].
James 2:19 - Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
Mark 3:11 - And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.
Matthew 10:1 - And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
Matthew 28:19-20
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Mark 16:17-20
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
Jeremiah 33:3
3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
Acts 19:15-17
15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
Matthew 25:21 - His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
James 1:12 - Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
1 Peter 5:8 - Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Colossians 1:16 - For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Matthew 28:18 - And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
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