A General Prayer for Freedom in the Realms of the Soul

One of the things I have written on in depth is the subject of emotional wounds and soul trauma and the resulting fracturing and fragmentation of the soul, as well as some methods one can use to go about healing it all.  I have coauthored the book Broken To Whole partly as a means of educating people about these things and partly as a way of providing solutions for fragmentation and emotional wounds as a whole.  This subject gets a lot more complex than some people prefer to go, but the soul is complex and we all have one, so it seems prudent to me for us to be taught and prepared accordingly.  For those who are unfamiliar with this subject I recommend you start with the following blogs, in that order:

Uprooting the Poisonous Tree—The Process and Value of Inner Healing

An Introduction to Soul Fragmentation.

The Solar System Model For Understanding Fragmentation and Dissociation

For a better understanding of how fragmentation influences day to day life and the inner healing process, and how dissociation actually works in the day-to-day, listen to Dan Duval’s message “The Airplane Model of Dissociation.”

You will also want to pick up a copy of Broken To Whole and give it a read.

 

Because inner healing is so important to how we overcome as the Body of Christ, I have crafted a prayer that can be used to help pray through soul-related problems.  I call it a “General Prayer for Freedom in the Realms of the Soul, and this prayer is written in such a way that it can be prayed over oneself or prayed over someone else.  It has been designed to be somewhat comprehensive because while I want people to be equipped to pray through things they are aware of, often we have problems we are not consciously aware of or do not know how to address.  This prayer is written in part to cover inner healing needs we have that we are not consciously aware of, as well as to address spiritual forces that we may also not be aware we are battling.  Some of the language addresses things I and others have encountered in the spirit (most of which can be found in scripture if you know how to look) that some may simply be unfamiliar with, but the purpose of this post isn’t to teach on inner healing, but rather to provide a prayer for use, so I am not breaking down the prayer and why I included what I did.  My prayer for you is that you find a greater measure of freedom in your life and the lives of those you love as you use this resource.  On to the prayer!

 

General Prayer for Freedom in the Realms of the Soul

 

Heavenly Father I command the hosts of Heaven to go inside the system/soul dimension of _____.  I send them to destroy every stronghold of darkness and to release every captive part of my/his/her soul in every realm, timeline, and dimension of time and eternity and bring them into the safe place in the realm of the Kingdom of Light within the soul.  I release healing light to touch every area of brokenness within the soul and to heal every emotional wound carried by the various parts within the soul dimension.  I send angels to every part of anyone else’s soul who is captive within my/that person’s soul dimension.  I remove every restraint, chain, or shackle of any kind, every weapon or impaling object, and any other devices, implants, or other objects that have been attached, implanted, or connected to those aspects of the soul in any way, and I disable, dismantle, and remove any traps or tripwires that would prevent them from being removed or that would be set off upon removal.  I apply the fire of God to destroy all of these objects and any others I have not yet named that do not come from the Most High God and servants acting on His instructions. Separate out those souls, disconnect them from him/her, and to take them to the feet of Jesus for him to decide what to do with them, and I remove any further access from those soul parts to any part of my/_____’s being in the future.

 

I take authority over every demonic spirit that has gained access to me/ _____ as a result of emotional wounds.  I break, shatter, and destroy your power and authority over him/her and remove all future access.  I bind you all and every spirit working with you, for you, or who is in any way connected to you and I cast you out of me/ _____, never to return.  I send angels to clean up everything these spirits have left behind, removing every essence, energy, residue, all objects, remnants of strongholds, and to fix and clean up anything that has been negatively influenced by any being who serves the kingdom of darkness whether intentionally or unknowingly.  I loose the fire of God to cleanse and purify every area of the soul that the kingdom of darkness has accessed or influenced, and I expand the light of the One True Lord Jesus Christ to those places of the soul, permanently extending the Kingdom of Light into those regions.  I decree that this work is finished and permanent in Jesus’ mighty name!

 

 

For those who are interested in learning more about this aspect of inner healing as a whole, you can pick up a copy of Broken To Whole, a book I coauthored that covers inner healing for the fragmented soul.  As I have developed this model after writing that book, it will not be in there, but in addition to other information, we do provide various exercises the individual can do to help jump-start their journey toward wholeness of the soul.  If you want some help in identifying and working with parts, as well as supporting the inner healing process, you might want to try Fragment Finder, a flower essence that helps resolve the buried emotional wounds which have caused the formation of soul splits or fragments.  For those who really want to dive into their healing journey, you can also buy the Broken To Whole Essence Kit, a package combination of five essence blends and a print copy of Broken To Whole.

Other good resources I recommend and use for Praying Medic’s book Emotional Healing in Three Easy Steps and Karol Truman’s book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die, and for more complex spiritual issues, Dan Duval’s books Prayers that Shake Heaven and Earth and Advanced Prayers that Shake Heaven and Earth.

If this material interests you, be sure to check out the other related blog links below, and sign up for my email list to get updates when new books, products, and events are released!  Blessings upon you!

 

 

Hearing God: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers

Since my buddy Kyle died this summer, I have been struggling to a certain degree with raising the dead—not in deciding whether to move on or give up on his resurrection as much as with finding an answer and a fruitful way forward in my own heart. I have been wrestling with how to become actually-effective in raising the dead. I have been wrestling with how to become whom I must become to carry the miracle-answer in any situation of need. And I have been dealing with the discouraging fact that every time I pray to raise the dead, the only thing that my Heavenly Dad says to me is how much of a great job I am doing, even when they haven’t returned yet. I suppose I should find what He tells me encouraging but it simply tells me that there is nothing different that I could be doing to be more effective than I am and have the resurrections occur—and to me, that’s rather discouraging.

Well, my buddy Steve reminded me recently of something that I already know, but where in our conversation he helped put it in context of this specific situation—namely that there are rules that govern how God can and cannot communicate with us based on where we are at and how we are able to hear Him. In any given situation it isn’t that God isn’t willing to talk to us, but sometimes He is limited in what He can successfully communicate with us.  I have written more in-depth on this subject in a recent article called The Rules of Speaking With God, but I’ll share some details here that relate to where I am going with this article in a different direction.   It isn’t that God is limited—its that we limit what we can receive. There’s a reason Jesus told his disciples “there is more I have to say to you than you can now bear.” It’s because they had to become different and grow their weight-bearing capacity before they could handle deeper and heavier things. It is likewise with us, and God has to help grow us from where we are to where we are heading in order to handle things God already wants to teach us and reveal to us right now. The fact is we simply aren’t ready, whether by our unbelief (meaning He will tell us things and we are unable to believe, receive, and/or understand it based on our deficits) or by means of some other lack in our lives. Sometimes it is that the demonic successfully block the messages God is sending us, whether that an angel is carrying a message and they block that angel and/or steal its message, or some other kind of blockage. However it happens, there is limitation in the spirit that reduces or influences God’s ability to successfully get the messages through to us when we ask.

While that is frustrating and at times disheartening, it means that we have to learn to change how we do things. Sometimes we are asking a question but it isn’t the right question, and based on the rules we need to start asking different questions to get the answers we need. Sometimes we are asking the right kinds of questions but we need to stop being broad and get more specific. And sometimes the question isn’t the problem but our level of growth and maturity is—so we must grow in certain areas before we will be ready to receive the answers to our questions. There are different ways we can get around some of this, and while little short-changes the need for growth (other than impartation, and even then it doesn’t fix everything), we can use certain strategies to overcome and move forward.

I was talking to my friend Hope this evening (the evening after I talked to Steve) about this very thing in regard to physical healing. She has been believing God for her healing for years, and God does answer with miracles at times for her—more than most people I know. And yet, she still has dealt with a lot of physical pain and suffering. What I told her is a strategy we can use in any area, but just target it toward the relevant things we are seeking and engaging. What I told her is that while she wakes up every morning with a faith and expectation that her healing has just manifested, she then discovers each day that it has not happened yet. Sure, we can say let’s just continue in that vein and one day eventually it will, and that is generally true. However, it is also safe to say that what she is doing literally isn’t working, so to continue to do that and expect a different result without changing anything might also be unwise. What I suggested she do is in addition to continuing to wake up in faith each morning that healing has come, to begin to ask the Father how she can partner more directly with Him to see it manifest.

What are the wisdom steps she can take right now to help herself on the journey?

What are the things God is trying to teach her or tell her right now that she hasn’t asked about that would move her closer to her healing?

What lessons does God have for her that will help her grow into her healing?

What are the things that are holding back or delaying or preventing the healing from manifesting?

As we start to ask different questions, something about engaging God differently allows Him to move differently. I don’t entirely understand why that is because I don’t quite understand the rules that govern how this works, but there are rules and this is why it works this way. When we stop just expecting or praying for one thing repetitively and start addressing the problem from different angles, we will find ourselves moving closer. Think of it as trying to push through a hurricane to reach the eye of the storm—pure force will make that exceedingly difficult if not impossible. However, if instead of trying to push straight into the eye and/or push against the wind forces, what if someone went at a slant in the direction the wind was moving but consistently inward? While I recognize actual hurricanes have a number of variables that would make this not work, the concept example is what I am going for. Consider that changing the approach from something that is inherently incapable of working to a different method creates an opportunity that didn’t exist before. Asking the Father different questions, praying a different way, and approaching the situation differently all will change us in ways that cause the answers to start to filter through, our prayers to become more effective, and the situations to begin to change. From a perspective of the Law of Sowing and Reaping (I explain this in depth in my book The Power of Impartation), if we start sowing differently, we will start reaping differently.  And the end result will be growth, forward movement, and answered prayer!

 

 

Guatemala Missions 2021: A Story of Healing and Redemption

My trip with Overseas Missions to Guatemala this November was eventful, to say the least, but there were certain things about it that were more special than others. One, in particular, was very precious to me because it felt like God redeemed a moment in my life that felt like a failure—not my failure, per se, inasmuch as the failure wasn’t by my choice or for my lack of trying, but because the situation did not proceed how my heart desired, and God in His infinite kindness offered me yet another opportunity for change, and to release His life to others.

One of the things I am discovering about myself is that personality-wise, as my Enneagram type is a 2, one who thrives largely on service to others, is that a desire to help others truly is a significant part of my life. As such, when I joined Overseas Missions in 2018 on a trip to India, my wife and I had prepared additional funds for some kind of emergency-need should the situation arise. And it did—in the form of a grandmother whose leg was badly infected with gangrene. Having already spoken about the funds to the leader of the India-side of our medical team, when this need arose she approached me and asked if I would be willing to cover the medical costs for this woman—which I instantly agreed because if she was not treated appropriately, she would die. Our team leader also took the situation seriously and followed up with the local pastors to make sure they tracked the family down to get the job done.

It was only later that night that I found out that the adult son had refused any kind of aid because he didn’t want our money. I still to this day don’t understand what it was he thought I was trying to give, or if in his pride he thought I was trying to take something from him by helping his mother. I will probably never know. I found out in the worst way too—everyone thought I already knew so spoke of it casually, but to discover in casual conversation that this woman was essentially sentenced to death was really hard, and I won’t lie, I ran away from the dinner table crying. Thinking about it now still makes me cry, actually. But that’s why this particular event on the Guatemala 2021 trip was so special to me—because as much as the one in India was damaging to my heart, this one was healing. Now that I’ve told you the background, I want to tell you what God did.

In Guatemala we paired up with a local missionary couple outside of Flores and their team who are growing and expanding Corazones En Accion (Hearts in Action), The Jungle School, and related business Itza Wood, all the while ministering to the local population. The school teaches children all the way through high school where possible (and you can support the children through their sponsorship program), and Itza Wood and other related businesses provide both marketable skills for those in the area, jobs that provide for a better quality of life for entire families, and the income helps support the mission work of Hearts in Action. Overseas Missions’ work this time involved setting up a traveling medical clinic, where we visited different villages and assessed their medical needs, providing medications and other simple treatments and education where relevant, and then armed with information on the physical problems the people suffered, our prayer team healed the sick, opened blinded eyes, and saw the lame walk once again. The leader’s thirteen year-old son took it upon himself to record the testimonies of what God did, and he filled over thirteen pages with healing testimonies from that trip, and he by no means got them all.

 

One day we had driven two hours to deliver food, pipes for a water line, and a message of the good news of Jesus Christ who still saves, heals, delivers, casts out demons, and performs miracles today to a tiny hamlet of seventeen families that was clearing part of the jungle to build new lives on land granted by the government. We saw some pretty spectacular healings (one in particular involved Troy, one of my teammates, which I will tell another time), then left to hold another medical clinic elsewhere. At that clinic, I met Antonio. One of the other nurses was talking to him about his wife Reina and her medical condition. It turns out she had miscarried a baby five months prior and subsequently had been vomiting every day since then, unable to keep food or fluids down. They had already seen a doctor the week prior and the ultrasound of her abdomen showed that her gallbladder was part of the problem. From what we could identify, it sounded like an infected gallbladder, which under the right circumstances is life-threatening, and after vomiting for five months, she was at very high risk.

 

You need to understand that at this point, regardless of what anyone else saw, I was seeing a similar situation to the prior trip. A man whose female family member was headed for imminent death if nothing was done to turn the situation around, and really we were the only ones who would be able to help because truthfully, Antonio didn’t lack for caring—my time with him showed me he is a kind man—he simply didn’t have the money to fix it.

I spoke with one of the missionaries and we agreed to take them to the hospital the next day, pay for the medical evaluation, and work to get her well. When we stopped by Antonio’s sister’s house near Flores where Reina and their son were living temporarily, Antonio met us there. He had taken two weeks off of work (which is a huge deal for them) and driven the two hours from where we met him toward Flores because we were coming to help—but his countenance was low and he had little hope.

We prayed for her, then drove to a local hospital run by Samaritan’s Purse where, upon explaining the situation, they took Reina into their three-bed Emergency Room and began to evaluate and treat her. She got antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, further evaluation on her vomiting, gallbladder, and more. They identified that the bleeding from her ulcers had made her anemic and while she didn’t get a blood transfusion that day, they ended up giving her one a week later and she will probably need another in the near future. They managed her pain, nausea, and she was diagnosed with severe gastric ulcers as well as a gallbladder that needed removal but fortunately was not infected. While that doesn’t sound too medically intense, and in some ways it isn’t, as we regularly treat these issues in the United States with over the counter medications, this was literally going to kill this woman. And why? Because of lack of money. The only reason she had suffered so much for so long was because they didn’t have the money. To me, that is evil.

By the end of the day, things were different. Reina still looked and felt miserable, but to be fair her body was fully depleted in every way. Antonio, on the other hand, had a completely different countenance. Why? Because of love and hope. Think about it—this man had already lost his second child to a miscarriage, and was in danger of losing his wife as she slowly and painfully wasted away and died while he looked on, feeling powerless to do anything to turn it around. But, over the course of a single day, things had changed. By the end of the day he was smiling because God had given him hope again. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit had impressed on the head nurse for our team to bring a lot of Nexium with her from the States in spite of not knowing why she was bringing it—and it was the exact medication they prescribed Reina to help her ulcers to heal. Jesus is so good!!!

And in all of this, God healed something in my heart too. Why? Because this time it actually worked. This time instead of knowing that another person marched inexorably toward death through a lack of intervention and a lack of means, God was able to not only save a life but restore a family, and I was so touched that He had given me the gift of being involved in it. The situation in India was heart-crushing, but the one in Guatemala was heart-healing, and once again revealed God’s boundless and breathtaking kindness that He demonstrates to each one of us. And that’s not all.

It has taken some time for things to turn around for Reina and Antonio. They have incurred ongoing medical costs after that initial ER visit due to follow-up visits, an endoscopy, and a gallbladder-removal surgery, most of which has already been paid for through friends and followers of The Kings of Eden (In fact, I am going to a bank today to transfer those funds to the missionaries there to cover those costs). If you want to donate to cover Reina’s other medical costs during this process, send money via Paypal to Thekingsofeden@gmail.com, and 100% of all funds will be used for medical care (I don’t do “administrative costs”—what comes in will be sent back out). Not only that, but there’s some really great news! I got a text just yesterday from Suzanne, the wife of the missionary-couple of Hearts in Action with some really amazing news! Reina, who, remember, has been unable to eat anything and keep it down for over 5 months, has already gained four pounds and is now able to eat soup and smoothies. Not only that, but she and Antonio are going to get married in 2022! I didn’t know at the time, but they have never gotten married, and this situation has given them the push they needed to get married as well. How exciting! God has done a mighty work of restoration in this couple’s lives. Their son, age 5, had told me when I was there that he was looking forward to going back to their house because they have chickens and he wants to get a dog!

Guatemala 2021 was an amazing trip for many reasons, more of which I will share in future articles, but this aspect of the trip will always remain special to me. God redeemed a loss in my life, and I have been getting to see Him do exceedingly abundantly more this time around than I even expected. If there is any situation in your life where you have lost hope, where you feel that nothing can turn it around, or where you just don’t know if God cares enough to get involved, I want to remind you that if He cares enough to have people travel from another country just to restore the health and life of one single family who did no special great deeds to earn the favor or grace of a Deity, then He certainly cares about you. Antonio told me that afternoon after we left the hospital that God answered his prayers by sending us to help them, and if God hears the cries of a desperate husband in the jungles of Guatemala and answers them, God will answer your prayers too.

 

Uprooting the Poisonous Tree—The Process and Value of Inner Healing

One of the big-ticket issues people have with inner healing as a Christian practice is the idea that Jesus never directly talked about inner healing, and the resulting argument is that we therefore shouldn’t need to do it. One of the problems with this idea is that the Bible does actually tell us that Jesus provides for inner healing. in places such as Isaiah 53:4 which says He bore our grief and sorrow, and Jesus himself quoted Isaiah 61 which directly refers to replacing joy for mourning and praise for heaviness/depression. Even if we ignore those plain references to healing emotional issues, Jesus did share farming and planting principles that we can apply directly to emotional issues and how they function within our soul. We are going to look at an example that aligns with what Jesus did teach, and see how the practice of inner healing can help our spiritual growth.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us, ” Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us . . . ” This passage tells us that we need to do two things, and in a specific order. The first is get rid of the things that hold us back, and the second is to run forward on the path that has already been marked out and predetermined for us. What holds us back? Primarily three things: bad mindsets and/or lies we believe, emotional wounds, and demonic influences and attachments. Obviously we change mindsets through mind-renewal (Romans 12:2) and we deal with demons by casting them out. For emotional wounds, however, we have to heal them. And to do that, it helps to understand how emotional wounds work, and how to get rid of them effectively and permanently.

Emotional wounds are a bit like planting a seed in a garden. The garden is the soil of our hearts, or in reality, they occur in the dimension of the soul, but let’s work with the gardening analogy. When we have negative emotions that we do not properly process and remove, whether through unforgiveness, fear, mindsets, demonic influence, or simply a magnitude of emotional pain, those negative emotions get trapped in our hearts and get planted in the garden there, acting like seeds. As we encounter new situations that are similar to those initial seed-events, the seeds get watered and grow. As we indulge our fears and ruminate on those negative things, we feed and water those seeds even more, eventually growing those seeds into poisonous fruit-bearing trees, what are essentially emotional strongholds in our hearts. Now, if we wanted to stop having bad fruit from all of those negative emotions, we could spend all our time cleaning up the garden of our soul and removing all of the bad fruit. And while doing this provides some measure of inner benefit, in the end it is somewhat futile if that is all one does.

Here’s why.

The fruit of an emotional problem is simply the result of ongoing care and maintenance of a poisonous tree. The poisonous tree makes all kinds of room for demons to roost in its branches and the fruit ensures that the problems continue to grow and spread gradually over time. If properly tended, the tree can exist literally forever. In order to actually deal​ with the problem, one has to start moving upstream from the fruit, back to the source of the problem. One might argue that chopping off the branches would stop the tree from growing fruit, but have you ever seen what happens when a tree loses its limbs? In many cases even if cut down, so long as the roots remain intact the tree will extend its roots further and the tree will grow new limbs over time. In other words, cutting down the tree still won’t solve the problem. The only real solution is to uproot it entirely.​

This is where inner healing comes in. Instead of spending a lifetime dealing with the problems downstream of the actual issue, emotional healing is generally designed to uproot the issues at their inception. By doing this, the individual will stop having emotional triggers each time a new event occurs that is similar in some way to the initial one, which means they stop watering and growing that initial plant. Now, what complicates this a little is that each new event is also an opportunity to plant new poison-trees as well, so it usually takes time and energy to properly deal with the emotional roots of problems. These issues rarely appear overnight and are often the result of years of problems and ongoing reinforcement, so it is uncommon for these things to clear up in a single prayer session.

This is where a major objection to inner healing work gets raised—that Jesus completed His work on the cross once for all, and yet inner healing ministers just want to spend years and years rehashing past events that are already supposed to be cut off through the cross. And if people stopped having emotional problems upon salvation, then that argument would hold merit. What we believe is is supposed​ to happen and what actually​ happens are two different things. While certainly a one-time fix is the goal of every inner healing minister, it is simply uncommon, and thus we work with what we have and develop ways to do things faster and better over time, with the one-time-fixes all prayer-goal in mind.

In the meantime, someone seeking to get healing for their emotional problems would do well to remember that if problems weren’t created in a day, then they may not get fixed in a single inner healing session. Furthermore, in the same way that plant roots can get tangled with one another, emotional issues are often tied in with one another. Rejection from a parent may also come with guilt and shame in some way, fear of further rejection, and more. And that guilt and shame can then be linked to multiple different things, and so on. Thus, inner healing is often non-linear, sometimes meandering in ways that appear random at first, but when led by the Holy Spirit produce wonderful results.

At the end of the day, the point of inner healing isn’t to focus on problems. Well, it is, but only just long enough to heal them and provide tools for further self-healing work that the individual can do on their own. In this, it fulfills the first part of Hebrews 12:1, throwing off the hindrances and stumbling blocks that keep someone from moving forward into all God has for them. Ignoring the stumbling blocks slows someone’s forward movement. Removing them speeds it up. While it is possible to get bogged down in constant focus on emotional problems, that is addressed by renewing the mind, another aspect of the inner transformation process, and not one we are focusing on in this article. All in all, Jesus’s teachings as well as His work on the cross are congruent with the practice of inner healing, and those who make use of it, whether through any one of the myriad of modalities, methods, or practices available or on one’s own, he or she will, if applied consistently over time, experience accelerated spiritual growth, greater inner freedom and peace, and likely will find themselves growing deeper in their relationship with God. All in all, quite worth it.

If you are looking for some resources on how to get started, try the following:

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Time To Step Out and Raise The Dead!

I tend to write about the things that occur to me, which means the subjects I write about tend to vary over time. A number of years ago I was writing much more about certain types of miracles—gems and feathers manifesting supernaturally, as well as the Bible in Dalton, Georgia that was producing oil for a time. These days I have been much more focused on raising the dead and the gospel of life and immortality—the latter partly because I am finishing writing a book on the subject and partly because it’s something the Lord has called me to preach and teach. The former has been on my heart for a number of reasons as well, one of them being the current situation we find ourselves in both as a nation and worldwide.

Last year we were told there was a deadly pathogen that we must rearrange our entire lives to hide in fear from, we were told a combination of scientifically proven and nonscientific nonsense “rules” that would “keep us safe”—from a pathogen with a low mortality and known drug treatments which have been (and continue to be) suppressed. I have been saying over the past year that we need to get better at grasping the revelation of who Jesus is as the One Who Defeated Death and as such learn to become effective in raising the dead, but I had a dream one night that, to me, further accentuates this point.

In the dream, I was speaking to a pastor. This pastor told me that there are no nurses in churches across America on Sundays because they are all busy working with the sick and dying when they need​ to be in church to recharge themselves because of it. The dream was short, but the message to me was somewhat clear: things are going to get much worse before they get better.

The highly-experimental shots that people have been taking this year have caused some very-predictable mutations to the initial lab-designed pathogen and the results have been ugly. Just from what I have personally seen working with patients, the damage to the body seems to be worse than the first time around, and many hospitals are still resistant to using some of the drugs that have been proven to be effective—which means more people are dying who don’t have to. Furthermore, as more people continue to get the jabs and they develop boosters and more, I expect this trend of increasing mortality to continue. It used to be that in America it was difficult to locate people who have died to be able to pray for them. I suspect that time is coming to an end. The bad new is that means a LOT of death. The good news is that we have an opportunity to step out in faith and see what God wants to do to reverse it. But it’s going to take each of us actually stepping out of our comfort zones to do just that—ask to pray for dead people and then do what it takes to make that happen.

Faith often looks like risk, and the truth is that whether we step out in faith or choose not to, we risk something either way.  On the one hand we risk not seeing the results we seek, but on the other hand we risk never seeing God move in miraculous ways and destroying death.  There are risks in either direction, but risk is impossible to escape, so we might as well embrace the kind of risks that produce life.

This may be a very new idea to some people, and it may not be a new idea to others, but you may just never have actually stepped out​ to try it. Or maybe you have, but you’d like to learn more about the subject. Well, here’s what I recommend:

  1. Read my book Faith to Raise the Dead and Tyler Johnson’s book How to Raise the Dead, or for a quick-reference guide, grab a copy of Practical Keys to Raise the Dead.
  2. Attend a training with the Dead Raising Teams led by Tyler Johnson of One Glance Ministries.
  3. If unable to attend in person, buy his School of Resurrection audio series, invite some friends over, and have your own virtual DRT training.
  4. Head over to the Raise The Dead Initiative page of our website for additional links and resources.
  5. Start looking for opportunities to pray to raise the dead.  As you put yourself out there, opportunities will open up to you (pets included!).

 

 

 

The Truth Sets Us Free

The Bible tells us that the truth will set us free, and I participated in a really great example of that the past two days. As a float pool nurse, I get moved around the hospital regularly, so I have taken to praying each morning for God to assign me to the location I need to be on that day—and He has been faithful to do so each day. While at work those days, I had the opportunity to speak into the lives of some of the other nurses on the floor, and the results were pretty awesome!

Both nurses in question were having relationship problems, although entirely different in nature. With the first, I was able to explain a bit about how the soul functions in three separate parts—the mind, will, and emotions—and how when our emotions are storming out of control we have to make some choices with our will and choose our thoughts in a cold, calculated manner regardless of our feelings, and that as we do that, we can help shift how we feel in a situation. I also began to declare over her that her relationship problem was going to resolve and all will be well. By the end of the day, her countenance had changed—as had her relationship! The keys I had already given her were working!

The second of the two problems was a little more difficult and while I was able to speak some encouragement and hope into the situation, I was glad I got assigned to the same floor the next day. In fact, I almost didn’t, and at literally the last second my assignment got switched (it was so last minute I literally arrived late to the correct floor for the day) to where I had worked the prior day.

Both the nurses were really happy to see me, and we began our shift as usual with the normal daily tasks and care. During a lull in the day I spoke with the second of the two nurses who shared a bit more of how things progressed with her relationship the prior evening after we spoke—and while it confirmed some of what I had been saying the day before, it still wasn’t good. I reminded her that while she felt like things were hopeless, that a promise from God in Jeremiah 29:11 told her that she has a hope and a future, and encouraged her to shift her perspective to expect that they have a future together and that things will improve.

God was already giving out His freedom-releasing truth, but it gets better! A key part of the problem with her relational issue was actually the same as the first nurse the day prior—emotions and beliefs. The guy she was having difficulty with has a lot of unhelpful beliefs that are causing him problems, and causing her pain. I gave her similar advice on how to manage her side of the situation, but then encouraged her to pray for him so he could find a way out of his struggles.

As we discussed this, I pointed out Hebrews 6:12 which ultimately points out that it is through both faith and​ patient that we inherit the promises of God. She wasn’t understanding why things hadn’t changed in just a week or two, and I was able to show her how we have to persevere in our prayer and PUSH—Pray Until Something Happens!

As we continued to talk on the second day, I pointed out that she had already turned from negative direction to positive, and now it was walking out the positive. She just had to remain patient. I reminded her that Galatians 6:9 tells us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” In the end, we just have to keep persevering. God answers our prayers—just sometimes it is piecemeal and not all at once.

I explained the day prior about emotional healing and how it sometimes happens in chunks and layers, not 100% all at once. I shared my friend Praying Medic’s book Emotional Healing in 3 Easy Steps (which she used that night), and I encouraged her to keep going.

By the time we were done, she felt light. I could feel the lightness. It was freedom because truth had set her free. And it was going to set her man free. And bring freedom to her, to him, and to those around them! Yaay God!!

 

 

The Rules of Speaking With God

Like the ideas for many of my blog posts, this one began with a conversation with a friend—in this case my buddy Steve. I was sharing with him that I was having a really hard time with the fact that another dear friend of mine not only didn’t get raised from the dead, but that I had a dream the morning of his funeral where he did​ get raised and when I woke up it took me a minute to realize I had been dreaming. A total mood killer. for the happiness I was waking up with. Anyway, I was telling Steve what God had shared with me about the situation, and how it was the first time in a long time that God told me something different than He normally does in dead raising situations (God always tells me the same thing—what a great job I’m doing, whether they return or not). Steve reminded me of something I knew but had forgotten, and something we have talked about on other occasions—that there are rules in play that may have permitted God to tell me something different this time than He normally does. I get this is an odd concept for most people, so let’s talk about the rules of speaking with God.

Whenever I talk about spiritual rules and laws, most people get offended. I wish it wasn’t true, but they do. Often, people seem to equate the existence of spiritual rules as being the same as living under Old Testament Law, the law of Sin and Death that Jesus came to set us free from. And maybe to some degree they are either the same or related. Its possible. But more to the point, when Jesus died and rose again, physical laws like gravity and rules of Newtonian Physics didn’t cease to exist—so why do we think spiritual ones would just vanish? For those interested in a deeper discussion of spiritual mechanics and how they influence our lives (and how we can use them for spiritual growth), pick up a copy of my book The Power of Impartation—I go fairly in depth on the subject there. For now, however, I want us to focus on one specific area, the rules that govern our interactions with God.

It sounds weird to think there are rules that govern how we interact with God, but there are. For example, Number 12:6-8A says, “he said, “Listen to my words: ‘When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord.'” God clearly explains how with most people​ God communicates in certain ways—riddles, visions, and dreams. However, because Moses sees God’s form, there is something different about how God can communicate with the man, so God does it face to face with him. Why does that matter? It isn’t because God isn’t interested in talking clearly to us—it’s because there are rules that dictate how the interactions can occur. Why else would there be prophecies about how one day in the future we would all​ be taught by God directly instead of through prophets and teachers (Isaiah 54:13; Jeremiah 31:33–34; Hebrews 8:10–11 and mentioned by Jesus in John 6:45)? It is because God wants​ to talk to us this way but can’t​. At least not yet, not fully how He would like to, but we’re headed in the right direction.

Where else do we see this? All over the Bible. God has very specific things He wants to accomplish, but because there are rules that I don’t even entirely understand, He has to have angels give messages, sometimes cryptically, to have people do things they don’t entirely understand—things that probably would go more smoothly if God would just speak more directly and clearly. And many of us have had similar situations, right? Where God tells us something vaguely, or gives us a cryptic warning dream that we only manage to interpret with the benefit of hindsight, rendering the warning entirely useless. I mean, if God really cared, wouldn’t He give us a warning we can understand easily? He would love to​ because God is kind and loving and good. But He can’t, because of the rules.

God is limited by a combination of things. Often there are limits to what we are able to hear based on our current capacity and ability. Jesus mentioned this in John 16:12-13 saying, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” Jesus had more He wanted to tell them, but was limited by their​ capacity to bear, handle, or manage what He wanted to tell them. The same is true with you and me, and it limits what God can tell us. That is why God takes us from one level of truth to another. He might tell one person something that is true to a certain degree, and then years later as they grow in things spiritual God then says something else that might seem contradictory at first to the previous thing God had said—but God was not lying to the person. Rather, he was sharing one level of truth and when the person grew and was able to handle more, God could share a deeper truth. We see the same thing often with denominations. God will move people from one denomination to another as He is growing them because of the truths that they carry and the depths God wants them to grow into.

God is limited in some ways by the level of demonic resistance. Or maybe, instead of saying God is limited, it might be more accurate to say that our receiving capacity is limited in what messages do and don’t arrive to us successfully. Daniel is a great example of this. In Daniel 10, the man Daniel received a very troubling revelation, and then received an interpretation in a vision, and then he began to fast and pray because of how troubling it was. An angel shows up 21 days later but explains that he was sent the same day​ Daniel began to pray and seek an answer, but that a demonic prince, a fallen Beni-elohim, the prince of Persia, opposed him as he traveled in the spirit to bring the message, and Michael the Archangel, another Beni-elohim prince had to come and fight on his behalf so he could get the message to Daniel. The spiritual battle over revelation is actually pretty intense at times, and those who do inner healing and deliverance know this to be true. Sometimes during a session all spiritual communication simply shuts down as the enemy tries to prevent all revelation from coming through, and if persistent enough, usually the believers praying will break through and the revelation that brings freedom will begin again. It isn’t that God is unwilling to release freedom, but that the battle is real and the enemy sometimes go into overdrive to stop the communication.

I don’t claim to understand all of the reasons why these things are this way, but I do understand they are this way. There is something really good that knowing this does for us though. Because we now understand the underlying problem, we can do something about it. In the case of demonic interference, we can continue to pray, fast as necessary, and break through the demonic blockades. We can do things to enhance our own weight-carrying capacity in the spirit so that God can release more to us. Fasting and praying in tongues consistently are two good ways to do this, but not the only ones. We can also make sure to not just ask questions of God, but change​ the questions and change the way we word them and ask them. There is something about how we ask questions that sometimes frees God up to answer them differently. Maybe it’s that asking different questions bypasses ways the demonic were blocking them. Maybe it’s that asking different questions lets God answer them in a way we are already prepared to handle them. I don’t know why it works—I just know that it does. Sometimes there isn’t anything different we can do and we simply have to grow into a new place before we can get different communication from God. Whatever the reason, there is a reason, but as we remain steadfast and persistent in drawing near to God, we can trust that He will draw near to us and that our communication will grow deeper, clearer, and better over time.

 

 

Emergency Preparedness is Highly Spiritual

In my teens I spent a good amount of time in the Boy Scouts, including two summers as a camp counselor at a Boy Scout Camp. There was a lot that I learned during that phase of my life having to do with the outdoors, swimming, first aid, and more, but one thing that always stuck with me was the motto “Be Prepared.” There are a variety of ways one can follow that ethos, from emergency preparedness to financial preparedness and more, but I want us to consider something that follows more closely with the subjects on this site: spiritual preparedness.

I realized years ago that in any given situation I cannot guarantee that anyone else​ will walk in the anointing, identity, and authority as a son or daughter of God to get the job done in whatever the current circumstance is. And while I think it is healthy to a degree to rely on others in the Body of Christ, situationally, that is not always possible or even wise. Thus, I decided that I must grow to become whatever I must become in any situation to solve Earth’s problems with Heaven’s power and grace.

While that may sound arrogant to some, I think it actually aligns pretty closely with the nature of our Heavenly Dad—the one who goes by the name “Jehovah Jireh” or “the God who Provides.” I had a Mormon patient share with me once that God’s name “Jehovah Jireh” actually is better translated as “I Will Become Whatever I Must Become [to meet the need].” If we consider that God is determined to become for us whatever we need in any given situation, is it really too much to consider that we, being made in His likeness, are to walk in the same nature as our Father?  And while one can make the argument that God will always provide in any situation, how did God provide for the famine in Egypt?  He sent Joseph a dream so he had seven years to prepare.  For Noah?  He gave him over 100 years to build an ark.  Sometimes, faith looks like doing something in advance.

[box] Sometimes, faith looks like doing something in advance.[/box]

Fasting is a great discipline, although difficult at times, but when tragedy strikes is really not the best time to begin fasting. In fact, I think it is far better to have lived a general lifestyle that includes fasting if for no other reason than to be prepared. Prayer is a great discipline, but is it really effective to begin developing that lifestyle once a problem hits? I suggest it is far better to have developed that discipline and have those lines of communication open prior to issues springing up. Walking in spiritual gifts, the anointing, power, authority, identity and more are all really good things​ for us to do. But is the time to begin doing those things really the moment when problems befall us and those around us, or is it wiser to be like the Wise Virgins in the parable Jesus told and be prepared for future situations?

I suspect we have entered an era where there is little time left to prepare for the things that are coming our way. There is tyranny in the air, many opportunities for intentionally-manufactured economic ruin for individuals, families, and even different regions of the world. Certain sicknesses have been unleashed on the world to intentionally create ill health and death, and the “cures” for those diseases may end up being just as deadly. The time to prepare for all of these things and the many more possibilities I have not named is not someday in the far off future. The best time to prepare is years ago, but the next best time​ to prepare is begin today.​

So what does this preparation look like? What options do we have? Let me give you some suggestions—some of them are things I already do, some are things I need to do more of myself, and this is a reminder to me to do the same as well! The suggestions below are not exhaustive, but they will get you started on the road to new levels of spiritual power, new levels of mental preparation, and new levels of walking in the authority and anointing that God prepared in advance for you to walk in, to release His love and power into this earth!

  • Get intentional about fasting and prayer. The book Reece Howells: Intercessor is a great encourager in this area.
  • Spend time engaging in impartation of spiritual gifts with others. To learn more about this subject, read my book The Power of Impartation and then put the principles into action.
  • Transform your beliefs to reflect the Abundant Life that Jesus purchased for us. Learn about God’s desire to heal every sick person and raise every dead person back to life in my book Faith To Raise The Dead, and begin to practice and engage the material in your daily life.
  • Get intentional about transforming and renewing your mind. A great resource to do this is Chris Blackeby on Youtube.
  • Build your faith for the miraculous provision of Heaven. My two books Gemstones From Heaven and Feathers From Heaven are good ways to encourage this. Ruth Ward Heflin’s Glory books are faith builders, as is the autobiography of George Muller.  There are many fantastic books out there—find them, read them, and let your faith and expectation grow!
  • Get inner healing and deliverance. An old classic is Derek Prince’s book They Shall Expel Demons—the principles and wisdom in that book are timeless. I have coauthored the book Broken to Whole which deals with how we engage healing the broken and fractured parts of our soul as a result of pain and trauma. There are many other fantastic books and resources out there, but however you do it, spend time with intentional inner healing and deliverance prayer whether with someone else or by yourself and release the pain in your heart to God. My friend Praying Medic has a really good book called Emotional Healing in 3 Easy Steps that takes a lot of knowledge and “how to” and compacts it into a simple little prayer that anyone can use in just a few minutes. I highly encourage this method.
  • Ask the Lord what other areas you need to prepare in, and ask Him to lead and guide you to the resources and methods and means with which to get ready.

What are some ways you prepare for things spiritually?

 

 

Remain Steadfast. Ignore Your Circumstances.

One of the harder things I have had to learn to do over the years is to completely ignore my circumstances when it comes to praying for others. Whether praying to raise the dead, for those completely unconscious in the ICU, or any other seemingly-impossible situation, it can be a huge challenge to remain steadfast in faith. When everything in our circumstances scream “This is impossible! You will fail!” and especially those times when there is no one else standing in faith with you, those are the times where we truly discover what is inside us.

I have been blessed with good friends who are also not strangers to believing for and seeing Heaven’s interventions into humanly-impossible circumstances, but at the end of the day we can never rely on someone else’s faith, their beliefs, their encouragement, or anything else. The only one we can rely on is God, who never fails us and never leaves us to deal with things without His assistance, regardless of how things sometimes feel exactly that way. What we are given the opportunity to learn in such trying situations is something that Hebrews 6:12 states quite plainly, saying “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Impossible situations require not just faith, but patience.

Did Daniel simply engage faith when it took 21 days of fasting for an angelic messenger to fight his way past a demonic prince to bring a message to Daniel? Or was patience involved? When Jesus told the disciples to wait in the upper room, how did 500 believers dwindle down to 120 in a week’s time? Was it because some of them had faith but no patience?

In any situation we, as a choice of our will, must choose to remain steadfast—stable and steady, not wavering, not turning aside, and even if we do​ waver, that it only be for moments as we continue forward and onward. When we pray, we understand that we aren’t asking if​ God wants to intervene, but are seeking Him on how​ He wants to, and inviting Him to share His plans with us so we can walk it out.

In any situation we can have full assurance that it is the will of God for us to manifest the Kingdom of Heaven on earth because Jesus already purchased the solution. Our job is to walk it out. However, the only way we will successfully do that is if we let patience, steadfastness, and intentional single-focus be formed within us. While Hebrews 6:12 tells us that we must have both faith and patience, it does come with a promise—that as those things become formed and revealed in us, we will most assuredly inherit the promises.

And for those of you who are dealing with really difficult circumstances right now, I want this to be an encouragement to you. Remain steadfast. Ignore your circumstances. Keep pressing forward. God is with you, and He is always faithful.

 

 

Warning Dreams Are Good Dreams

The night before last I had a strange dream in which I was talking to a woman who was showing me her garden. In this garden there was a lot of poison ivy growing, as well as some other plants—one of which she said sometimes is poison ivy in disguise. I don’t recall more details of the dream, but it struck me as strange that poison ivy would disguise itself as some other kind of plant that looks nothing like it. On waking, I had to go bury a dead goat before church as one of my stepdaughter’s goats died from a copper deficiency and they were unable to get more of the supplement in time to save it. We had prayed for its resurrection the two days prior and with no results, we decided it was time to bury it, which became my job.

I loaded the goat up in a wagon and pulled it toward the back of our property which is forested and we don’t currently use for anything (other than burying goats), and was getting ready to turn into this one clearing-area when I stopped—because I realized I was about to walk through a patch of poison ivy. Now, poison ivy by itself is really annoying because the oils on the plant create an immune cascade in the body that causes an inflammatory response (the rash and itching) long after you have already washed the oils off your skin. In my case though, the inflammatory response likes to compete inside my body for the title of “Longest Ongoing Ivy Inflammatory Response” so even a week after I was exposed my body will still be creating new rashes—even after it has covered a large portion of my body already. In other words, I get poison ivy really badly and learned decades ago to rapidly identify and avoid it. I just haven’t lived right by woods for a number of years and got out of the habit.

Well, this is where the dream comes in. While I am sure there is more to the dream message than I currently understand (such as paying attention to what we cultivate in the garden of our heart), if I hadn’t had that dream about poison ivy I don’t think I would have been quite as mentally keen on noticing the plant in real life, and probably would have identified it while standing in the middle of it (For those who don’t know, all dreams have messages—you have to learn to interpret them to gain the understanding and subsequent benefit of the dream). If I had to classify this dream, it would fall into the category of warning dreams—ones that have a message warning you about something, whether a current internal/emotional condition, an unsafe personal relationship, or some other potential calamity. Warning dreams don’t sound like good dreams at first glance, but that is a perspective issue. In truth, warning dreams are very good dreams because they make you aware of something so you can fix it. I recently had a warning dream where I was on a battlefield and my gun kept jamming. The warning in that dream was that if I don’t fix what is causing the gun to jam, I won’t be able to stop enemy attacks because my weapons will be ineffective. Again, the dream doesn’t sound good, but the message it carried is very good because it helped me identify something in my life that I need to change in order to prevent the outcome the dream tells me is possible.

Dreams can be messages from God, messages from our subconscious, or messages from the enemy. We can travel in the spirit at night and upon waking we think we had a dream but in actuality our spirit was somewhere else in the night (I talk more about this in my book The Beginner’s Guide to Traveling in the Spirit), and often God will give people spiritual encounters with angels, Jesus, and other saints while they are asleep. Ultimately, all dreams can be considered good dreams with the right internal perspective, but warning dreams in particular are extremely useful to help us make course corrections and keep us moving steadily forward on our life journey. And in this case, my warning dream helped me avoid weeks of health problems as well. And I thank God for that!!

 

 

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