None Of This Is Life Or Death

Do you ever have those moments where you say something and when you hear it come out of your mouth you realize it carries a lot more wisdom than you intended? I was in line at the grocery store the other day. The cashier was getting extremely flustered because she had messed something up on the register and the line was backing up. And backing up some more. And backing up some more. And she was visibly stressed out by it all. Eventually, it was my turn to check out, and without me saying anything she apologized for everything taking so long. I replied, wanting to be encouraging and not meaning to be dismissive, by saying “Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. None of this is life or death.”

And right when I said that, it really hit me. I think sometimes because of my job as a nurse I forget that most other people’s jobs really aren’t life or death issues. I think there are very few professions in the world where you can be driving home after work and truly wondering if you might’ve accidentally killed someone today. And I am fairly certain that every nurse, doctor, paramedic, EMT, and others in the medical field know exactly what I’m talking about. But most jobs aren’t like that. In reality, most things in life as a whole aren’t like that.

And that’s not to say that other large life decisions don’t matter, because they do. But if I look at the number of times I get stressed by something in a day, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that in the grand scheme of things it’s really just not a big deal. Has traffic backed up and it’s taking longer than I thought to get somewhere so I will be late? Possibly. But is it life altering? Generally not. We all have stressors in life. And some of them are bigger than others. Having bigger stressors doesn’t automatically make the smaller ones disappear, but I think sometimes a shift in perspective can help, and in some cases help a lot. As that saying not-always-accurately goes, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.” I don’t think it is all small stuff, but knowing when to not sweat the small stuff can be a valuable skill to develop.

But the more I thought I about this idea, I then thought about how sometimes things we don’t think about much actually can have far more significance than we realize. How many times do we make a light of something when in reality it is participating long-term to producing life or death for us? If I am stressing over something insignificant, is that now producing death in my body when otherwise it never needed to? What about complaining about unimportant or minimally frustrating things? Or even just complaining as a whole? I won’t pretend that I have mastered that one by any stretch of the imagination, but are there areas in life where we consistently align ourselves with death without realizing it because we have become so accustomed to doing it?

The Bible tells us quite plainly in Proverbs 18:21 that, “the power of life and death are in the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” It mentions in Matthew 12:36 that we will be judged for every idle, careless, or useless word we have spoken. Now I’m not saying we need to be hyper legalistic or critical of every word that we or others say, as that is just creating its own special path toward religion and bondage. But I do think it becomes an opportunity to encourage us to check back in with the words that we say and the ideas that we communicate on a regular basis.

There is a rather obscure verse in the Old Testament, Isaiah 28:15, that talks about how the Israelites made agreements with death and covenants with the realm of the dead, and it really begs the question, how often do we through our word choices make agreements with death as well? I lay this concept out in significantly more depth in my book The Gospel of Life and Immortality. In that book I also go over some very common everyday examples of where we use our words to produce death. But I think this can actually be a very important subject for us to understand better. Often we produce death in our lives without even realizing it, and it is largely because we have gotten so used to it as a culture that few of us even think about the long-term effects of some of the simple statements and beliefs we hold. If this subject speaks to your heart at all, I highly encourage you to get a copy of that book. It is available in print, Kindle, and recently just became available on audiobook. Because so often the things that we think, say, and do in life really aren’t life or death issues. . . Until we look a little deeper and realize that maybe in fact they are.

Are Curses Real, And Can Christians Be Harmed By Them?

This is one of a few different subjects I see tossed around on social media from time to time, and especially among those who are deconstructing/remodeling their beliefs to better match New Creation realities in the Kingdom. As people go on this journey of rediscovery of what it looks like to be a Christian, there are quite sensibly a lot of questions about most of the things we have been taught in the past. As such, it is no surprise that the subject of curses would come up. And I don’t think the problem is that people are asking questions. The freedom to question is imperative. The problem is that some of the conclusions people reach are problematic. I want to break the subject down a little from a perspective of the fact that we are already new creations in Christ, from a position of what Jesus already finished on the cross, and also keeping in mind that we have been given a job to transform and transfigure creation.

The first question is pretty easy to answer. “Are curses real?” Yes. Proverbs 26:2 says “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.” There are some shades of detail to this that I won’t go into here, but Proverbs is quite clear that curses fly forth and have the potential to land. The Bible also quite clearly states of Jesus Christ in Galatians 3:13 that He became a curse to redeem us from them. Jesus isn’t an idiot, and He didn’t spend his time and energy to take curses upon Himself to set us free from something that doesn’t exist. So it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a generational curse, a curse thrown at you from witchcraft, or any other sort of curse, they do exist, and part of Jesus’s work on the cross was to set us free from them.

And this brings us to the next question, which is “Can Christians be harmed by them?” The short and extremely incomplete answer is also “yes.” Christians can be harmed by curses. But there is a lot more to the subject than a simple yes/no answer that we really should understand about it.

First, we need to understand free will. Every single human alive has been created in the image of God. We have been given free will, and God does not violate our free will even if we are doing something ill-advised or even flat-out evil. Which means if person A chooses to curse person B, then a curse is released from person A to fly to person B because they chose to by enacting their free will. Now whether that curse will actually land or not is a separate issue, and there are multiple factors that can influence that, including: the belief of person B, prayer for protection over their life, angelic involvement, demonic opposition, contracts and agreements in the spirit (which is often referred to as “open doors”), or anything else that creates access for the demonic to attack or afflict someone. This can even include agreements in an individual’s bloodline that they are not consciously aware of because they were not personally the one who made those agreements. This is a result of the principle of Federal Headship, which is found throughout the Bible, and is both one of the major reasons why generational curses exist, as well as the primary reason they are broken in Christ.

The reason I mention all of this is that when it comes to walking on the path of truth, it can be easy to fall into a ditch on either side. On the one side, we have people believing some version of the idea that curses don’t exist, have never existed, or cannot influence believers because Jesus already took care of it on the cross. On the other side, we have hyperfocus into trying to cleanse one’s generational line all the way back to Adam step-by-step through every generation in order to root it all out.

The latter is both a ton of work, and also wouldn’t fix all of it anyway because if you deal with bloodline issues and don’t deal with all the other stuff in the spirit, things in pre-incarnation, etc. then you did a lot of work and yet probably still didn’t catch it all. With the former, you simply ignore the problem to begin with and act like it’s going to automagically go away if you ignore it—which it largely will not. Now, part of where people get caught with this is that both sets of erroneous beliefs have certain things going for them that will yield a measure of fruit. And that measure of fruit becomes the corroboration someone is looking for to tell themselves that their belief is accurate. The problem is that there are aspects of each belief that are accurate or that produce results, but it is by no means the full picture.

So how does believing that curses don’t exist produce results? Faith. In Ephesians 6:16 it tells us that faith is protective. It is a shield, specifically to extinguish the darts of the evil one thrown at us, which could include curses. So if I don’t believe that curses exist, then some of the curses that are sent my way will automatically get extinguished and will not land because my faith that says they don’t exist revokes their right to influence my life. The problem is that for whatever reasons, this doesn’t always work. And truth be told, I can’t honestly tell you why it works for some curses and not others, but that’s just how it is. It might have something to do with the fact that people who believe curses don’t exist quite often also believe that demons don’t exist, which is categorically inaccurate, and opens them up to another set of problems.

If I believe a sentient entity who is attacking me of its own free will doesn’t exist, it doesn’t suddenly make the attack go away. As philosopher Descartes once said, “I think therefore I am.” The converse of that is not true though. If I don’t think something, it does not automagically blip that something out of existence. So maybe some curses that are thrown by people without much demonic involvement don’t take purchase in that individual‘s life because faith is protective, and when other ones do land its because there is more significant demonic influence behind them that overpowers the shield? I don’t fully understand the mechanism behind why some curses land and others don’t in those scenarios. I just know that because faith is protective, people who believe curses don’t exist will see a measure of results from that belief, and those results will serve to them as confirmation their belief is accurate (it isn’t). What they will not see is freedom from any of the other curses that are affecting them that are not influenced by that belief.

On the other side of things, we have people who are trying to manually deal with every curse step-by-step throughout their generational line and anywhere else they find them. To a certain extent, this will also yield fruit because they are actively breaking curses that do exist. The problem with this belief is the exact opposite of those who let curses run amok in their lives because they think they’re not real. In this case, this generational cleansing is a treadmill that is almost impossible to know when to climb off of. It can also generate a certain measure of legalistic thinking that gets us more focused on following or breaking cosmic laws and as a result it prevents us from fully walking in what Jesus already accomplished.

So where should we land in all of this??

Obviously, I’m going to recommend that we land somewhere in the middle. We need to recognize that curses are real. We need to not be naïve, and understand that humans who actively partner with the enemy through witchcraft, voodoo, sorcery, necromancy, and the like can and do send curses on people, and Christians are not exempted as targets. If anything, Christians are primary targets because they are Christians. We need to understand our identity in Christ and the authority that comes with it and break any and all curses—on us, our bloodlines, other people, and anywhere else we encounter them. And we need to also not get so bogged down with all of it that we spend a decade going through our ancestry with a fine toothed comb to pray through anything and everything that maybe could somehow possibly potentially be set against us. And how do we do that? It’s actually such a simple answer that it sounds too obvious to be the truth—we just need to ask the Holy Spirit. It is His job to lead and guide us into all truth and to counsel and guide us, so it is His job to help us walk the middle path in all of this.

We access things in the Kingdom through belief. But it is possible for someone to not even know about curses and yet still be affected by them. And then, if we pray to break those curses, and the curses get broken at that time, the oppression leaves. We could argue that it’s a problem of belief system, but if somebody’s belief system doesn’t include it to begin with and yet they are still being afflicted by it, then there is obviously more to it than simply belief, and there is something we have to do in the moment to enforce what Jesus did on the cross. And when we do enforce it, what Jesus did shines through. This isn’t because we are trying to “do more” than what Jesus finished, or even necessarily because we “don’t believe”. It’s a matter of enforcement. If things do not yet fully look like “on earth as it is in heaven” and if as Romans 8 speaks of, we the sons and daughters of God have not fully removed the decay from the cosmos yet, it isn’t a lack on Jesus’s part of failing to do something on the cross. It is simply that some things require enforcement, and we are God’s enforcement team in the earth.

I’m going to use an adjacent example to drive this point home, and possibly make it a little clearer to the reader using something more tangible than curses The Bible is quite clear that Jesus took care of all sickness, infirmity, and disease of every kind on the cross. And yet in the New Testament there still exists a divine empowerment from the Holy Spirit called “gifts of healing”. On a very real level, if what Jesus did on the cross was sufficient to manifest all healing for everyone without us ever doing anything to enforce it, then a gift of healing would be entirely unnecessary. And theologically, I actually agree that it should be unnecessary. But all of the injured people who check in at my hospital still need help in the moment, so what I think should be theologically accurate doesn’t really matter at that point.

The error of the “Finished Works” teaching of the 2010s is that it explains that the solution to healing (and every other problem) is simply for people to believe harder and believe more, and if they just more fully and completely believe the truth, then it will manifest for them. Which means any problem they have in their life is directly due to a failure on their part to believe what Jesus did, and it makes “belief” the new works. What it does not take into account is how fragmentation works and how one’s core believing something is not always the barrier or the solution (I write on this extensively on this blog and in my book Broken To Whole). It also does not account for the overlap in free will from one person to another and how that overlap affects us. If person A chooses of their free will to injure person B, then person B is most likely going to get an injury. Now because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can command healing and watch it get healed right in front of our eyes. But the injury will probably still occur because somebody enacted their free will upon the situation. Curses are the same. If someone enacts their free will to curse someone, that person will receive a curse (with the exception of mitigating factors as mentioned before). However, it can quickly and easily be broken because of what Jesus did on the cross.

We don’t need to spend time with endless focus on curse-breaking because we can believe what Jesus did is sufficient and walk in freedom by faith. And we can also take authority over curses in our lives as they get revealed to us and enforce the work of Jesus on the cross. Likewise we can live in divine health as a general lifestyle, and yet if an injury comes or an accident happens, we can command it to be healed and walk in wholeness and life once more.

There is much more I could go into detail about regarding fragmentation of the soul and how it influences free will, but this article would end up becoming so long it would be what I plan to someday write on the subject—another book teaching on all of this so we can walk in the freedom Jesus already worked out for us on the cross. Regardless of where you find yourself on this journey we call Christian Life, I encourage you to seek the Holy Spirit to help you walk the middle road where you can live from a place of rest, not needing to re-accomplish what Christ already did, and also not being so rigid in your thinking that when it comes time to enforce what He did, you are ready for the task. Be well and be blessed!

Choosing Your Measure

I was speaking with a patient in the middle of the night the other night. Somehow we got into a conversation about a range of Christian-related things, discovered each other are believers, and all in all had a good conversation. I honestly forget how we got onto the subject, but she began telling me about some of her past and how she had a lot of unforgiveness against her mother because of how terrible of a job her mother did in raising her. As we discussed forgiveness, I began to explain to her a few different reasons why it is so important that we forgive others. It is one of those subjects that are somewhat foundational, but it can be important to revisit from time to time, and even to be reminded that we all have people we have failed to forgive, whether from forgetfulness or intentionality. I want to share with you here what we discussed that night because it has implications that reach far beyond just forgiveness, into choosing how we are measured.

First of all, whether we do or don’t forgive someone else, they are usually unaware of. We are the one carrying around the anger, bitterness and other negative emotions while the other person carries on with their life. This means we are just hurting ourselves by maintaining this weight of debt on our souls. I gave her the example that Jesus gave in a parable of the two different debts in Matthew 18:21-25. I recommend you read the passage, as it directly relates to the topic of this article, but the short version is that the larger debt was forgiven, and the smaller debt was not forgiven, and the end result is that the one who refused to forgive the smaller debt ended up in prison himself. I explained that if we consider that what Jesus did was to forgive everything, then any debts that we hold onto are small in comparison to any debts Jesus could hold over us (but chooses not to). Which means really we’re the person in the parable who didn’t forget the debt and ends up getting locked up as a result. Unforgiveness imprisons ourselves.

That brought me to the point I made to her that I really want to focus on today. In Matthew 7:2 and Luke 6:38 it tells us that with the measure we use things will be measured to us. In John 20:23 Jesus pronounced over the disciples that if we forgive sins then they are forgiven, but if we do not forgive, or we retain those sins, then they are retained or not forgiven. But what I think people often forget, or are unaware of, is the fact that regardless of whether we forgive or retain someone sins against us, the standard we use is the one that gets applied to us. In other words, if I want to receive forgiveness from others, but I am unwilling to forgive others, then I am foolish to expect to receive forgiveness or others because I have already chosen the standard of how I want things to be measured toward me through my unforgiveness.

While focused on forgiveness, this is a broader-reaching principle with potentially significant impact. Consider the implications of us being the ones in charge of choosing how things are measured to us in life based on how we measure them out to others. In reality this is a type of manifestation of the law of sewing and a reaping, so it does make sense, but this deals more I think with treatment of others in the resulting treatment that we receive. I honor our others. I am likely to be honored. If I disparage others I will probably find myself disparage as well. If I lie, cheat, steal, and deceive others than the measure that I use toward others is likely what I will receive toward me. It may take time for some of those things to catch up to us, but the measure we use is what decides what we receive.

Something I think people may have a tough time with, especially those who tend to focus on more grace-related teachings, is this idea that we are measured at all. After all, if Jesus did it all on the cross, shouldn’t we be measured by His accomplishments and not ours? We could look at this a few different ways. We could argue that because Jesus said this in Luke, before he went to the cross, that none of this applies to us any longer. And that is certainly one view. Not one I maintain, but it is a view some people hold.

Another way of looking at this is that Jesus is giving us a basic understanding of spiritual laws (if you want to understand this subject better, grab a copy of my book The Power of Impartation). It is possible to function at a higher level than these laws, but this is one of the basics. This is foundational level stuff. If we don’t move beyond this, we will definitely find these things apply to us. I am not entirely decided yet as to whether these things will always apply to us or not, but at the very least, so long as we exist in this cosmos and are still governed by its laws instead of governing over them, these things will definitely apply. And to whatever extent they apply, it seems sensible to be aware of them, if for no other reason than because Jesus felt it significant enough to teach this fact to people.

I don’t know about you, but I really only want good things in life. I don’t want torment, problems, or pain. I don’t want unhealthy stress. I don’t really want people to gossip about me, or insult me, or any manner of other unpleasant ways that people can treat me. I don’t want to be hated. And I think that’s true for most everyone. We all want to be loved, honored, and respected. We want to be valued. And the good and bad news is that we get to choose the measure that we are going to receive based on the measure we used toward others. Now, this has nothing to do with how other people treat us. The Bible doesn’t say “if you respect people after they respect you” or any number of other things that are based on the behavior and decisions of others. What it says is that the standard we choose to apply to others is the standard that we will have applied to us. It is a form of conditional statement, but again, the both good and bad news is that we set the conditions. The great thing about it is that we are in a large degree of control over the standards we set. The downside is that we have to do this thing called “taking personal responsibility,” which if we are honest, no one really likes to do. We’ll do it, sure, but rarely does someone like doing it. It’s what mature adults do though, and you can learn a great deal about someone’s maturity level by whether they are or aren’t willing to take responsibility for things and the extent to which they make excuses or try to pass blame to others.

Whether we consider it a good thing or not though, the fact is that God has given us a significant amount of control over our lives. And fun fact, God is not in control. Not how we are usually taught. Psalm 115:16 says, “the heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to man.” This means that what happens on the earth is really up to us, not God. I hear many believers tossing around the “God is in control” panacea as a way of feeling better about bad things, but it’s high on my list of “unpopular spiritual truths” because God delegated authority over the earth to us. If we want things to be different, they will be when we make them that way. But the great new is that we have been empowered to make things become on earth as they already are in heaven, so while we have work to do, it is all do-able. And the best first place to begin is with our own hearts, our own souls, and choosing our own measure. Because with the measure we use it will be measured to us, so let’s choose the most life-giving Jesus-like standards we know how and then trust the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth as we walk this out.

Specialization in the Kingdom

In the past 20+ years, I have been part of the charismatic movement and beyond, I have learned a decent bit about dream interpretation, and have practiced it enough on my dreams and those of others that I consider myself to be decent at dream interpretation. I have friends who I definitely would consider experts, but most of the time I think there is value in trying to work out a dream on your own with the Holy Spirit. If nothing else, as we work out and practice interpretation of our own dreams, I believe it can help give us clearer insight into some of the ways that God communicates with us on a day-to-day basis outside of the dream realm. However, I want to take some time explaining how I manage dreams and dream interpretation to look at something a bit more expansive—how we specialize in skills and abilities in the Kingdom of God.

As I said above, I’m decent at dream interpretation. However, when I have a dream that truly stumps me, I will reach out to one of my expert friends. But then, because I’m pretty sure they get inundated with dream requests from other people, I try to not just pick and choose when I ask them, but I also like to vary who I ask so I am not always putting it out to the same person.

Well, I had a confusing dream the other day. The basic concept of the dream wasn’t all that complex, but how the symbology fit with my life, and the significance of a few of the key symbols in the dream were still somewhat confusing to me. So I reached out to a friend. And like I said, I took a minute to decide who to ask first before I just randomly asked someone, and it just felt like this particular friend was the best person to ask. So I did. And she agreed to take a look at it and get back to me.

A day or so later, she wrote me and asked me a question related to my ancestral background and inner healing and deliverance. I was intrigued, because I had no idea how she derived that from the dream. It turns out that in-between the time I sent her the dream and a day or so later when she read it, she and her husband had watched a documentary. In that documentary it included some of the same symbols that were in my dream—except this was a documentary about Irish folklore, not dream interpretation. What it appears happened is that when I was stumped on the dream and was pondering who to consult, the Holy Spirit nudged me toward the one person that He knew he was about to give an interpretation to. Now this is an interesting story, but what does this have anything to do with you, the reader, and what does this have to do with Kingdom specialization?

This makes me think of the book of Daniel, where we see that Daniel was given skill in the interpreting of dreams by the Lord. But he was surrounded by people who also interpreted dreams. Daniel’s skill wasn’t made irrelevant as a result of other people also possessing similar skills, but he definitely had more skill and a level of divine gifting that set him apart. However, Daniel was also not everywhere all at once, so I imagine that the interpretive abilities of everyone else also had their relevance. I think these details are important because there are a few things we can derive from this on a broad level for spiritual life.

The first thing is that being surrounded by others with similar specialization or experience does not make you or your abilities irrelevant, nor does it put you in competition with one another. As a nurse, I literally work with a dozen other nurses on a daily basis. My nursing knowledge and skills are not made invalid as a result of other nurses being present, nor does it mean we are competing to see who can “do it better,” but rather we can pull on each other’s areas of more narrow focus or ability as needs arise. I’m not terrible at placing IVs, but I’m also not the expert on our unit. However, if you need wound care done and aren’t sure what to do, calling me for help might be a good idea. Even with my example of dream interpretation, whether mine or Daniel the prophet, having others in your specialty area isn’t a bad thing, nor does it mean the area is oversaturated. We aren’t in competition with one another in the Kingdom—we lift each other up.

Second, Daniel wasn’t the expert at everything. He still needed other people to do whatever it was they did, and he still needed to primarily hit his areas of expertise. In other words, Daniel’s specializations were just that—areas of focus. It didn’t mean he was never permitted to venture outside of that lane, but Daniel knew where his lane was and for the most part he remained in it. One of the things I think that Kingdom maturity looks like is people staying in their own lane to a certain situational degree.

I have a minister friend who is more than happy to speak to his areas of specialty, but when someone asks him for advice or his opinions on things he is not considered an authority on, he has no qualms about telling them he either doesn’t have an answer or doesn’t consider himself qualified enough to give a good answer to that matter, and moves on. This is actually a very reasonable response, and is a mature approach to something we see with specialization, which is what is known as situational authority. If we are at a Body Shop dealing with car problems, no one cares about my knowledge or input. Why? Because I know little about vehicles and next to nothing about how to fix them. If someone suddenly starts having medical problems in that Body Shop they’ll want my help, but otherwise the best thing I can do is sit silently in a chair and let the experts do their job. Maturity knows when to step in and when to sit down.

Whether talking about Daniel being gifted with dream interpretation who sounds like he became exceedingly good at a rapid pace due to his giftings, or me who may have some measure of gifting but also who learned through experience over time, I think there is additional wisdom we can glean from all of this. In your average dream-interpretation situation neither Daniel or I would need to rely on someone else for the answer. While I don’t consider myself to be on Daniel’s level, when things get high-level though (such as needing to tell someone both the contents of the dream they had and its interpretation), even Daniel needed to take extra time to seek the Lord for help. I think there is an element of this type of maturity that we need to expect ourselves to walk in in the body of Christ—where we know when we can dive in and resolve something as Sons in the Kingdom and when to get outside help.

On a general level, wherever I go there should be a solution because I am present. If someone needs healing, I’m there so you get healed. If somebody needs inner healing and deliverance, I’m there so you get set free. Whether it’s raising the dead, dream interpretation, or anything else, I believe that we as individual believers should be well rounded enough that we are generally able to handle circumstances as they come across our path, whether they are our problem or the problems of those around us. And if for some reason, you are not walking at that level yet, that’s okay. We all have areas in room for growth, this is not condemnation to anyone who doesn’t feel like they have arrived yet. We are all on a journey, technically there is no point of arrival. But there is gradually increasing in maturity, and that needs to be a focus of ours. The term “jack of all trades master of none” is something that should apply to most believers, with the exception that I think it should say “master of few”. There is an element of general ability across the board that I believe each of us should possess, and to the extent that we don’t, we should be intentional about learning and growing in those areas. And yet, there is another side of things—what I mentioned before about staying in one’s lane. We should possess general ability, but also be able to recognize specialization.

Ephesians 4 is clear that Jesus gave SOME to the apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. In Romans 12, we see another list where it lays out workers of miracles. It doesn’t mean that only a special few are permitted to perform miracles, but that there is a specialization where some people are more capable at it than others. This means that not everyone specializes in each of those things—nor should they. If we want to function as a healthy Body of Christ, then we need to understand both generalization and specialization, and operate to a healthy capacity in both. For me, I made a decision many years ago that I need to walk in enough Kingdom power and authority that regardless of the problem and whether anyone else is present who can manifest the Kingdom in an instant, that if I am present that it will be enough. I have by no means fully apprehended that place, but it is something that does drive me to grow in all things Kingdom. This doesn’t negate the need for specialization, as I definitely specialize in areas of healing, whether body or soul, and things prophetic, whether revelatory or interpretive. I still have much room to grow in all of those areas, but it means that I know where I specialize which means I also can be aware of when I need to step up because my skills are best put to use versus when I should step aside and let someone else do their thing.

The good news is that whether in generalization or specialization, Kingdom advancement is Kingdom advancement. My encouragement to anyone who is moving forward is to keep doing so. If someone isn’t sure how to advance, areas of weakness you can shore up, or how to best learn and grow, I encourage you to take some time and ask the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, counsel and guidance, to show you a path forward. If you want to learn and grow in specific areas, then find those who are already blazing a path forward in those areas and read their books, listen to their teachings and podcasts, etc. This site is a great resource for inner healing, deliverance, physical healing, and engaging in the spirit, with hundreds of free articles that also cover things such as faith, miracles, and engaging angels. You can also check out my books on Amazon that cover a range of miracles, raising the dead, theology for life, traveling in the spirit, inner healing, impartation, and more. Be well, be blessed, and advance the Kingdom!

When God Chooses Your Inner Healing Method

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of praying with a precious sister in the Lord to help her get free from some things that she had been having difficulty with for some time. She had read my book “Broken to Whole” (available in print, ebook, and audiobook) and wanted some help working with her parts that were at the root of various fears she was dealing with. The Lord was very gracious and kind, and as He always does, He brought a lot of freedom and life during the prayer session. There was one thing He did that kind of surprised me, though. Much of the time when I am working with people’s parts, there are a series of things that I do early on in an initial prayer session with someone to create self perpetuating healing inside their soul, as well as make it easier to work with parts in the future. As I was wanting to not be too formulaic, I didn’t do any of those things when I began working with this sister in the Lord.

About 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through our time of prayer, however, this sister asked how she would be able to do more work with her parts herself in the future. Now, I think that’s a fantastic question. In reality, one of the important things about learning to work with parts is learning how to work with our own parts. Everyone has them, and at the end of the day, we are each responsible to steward the healing of our own soul. So I thought a question asking for help to be able to self-manage her soul healing process in the future was incredibly wise. The thing is though, the way I have people do self- healing is to literally do all of the things that I hadn’t done at the beginning of the session that I normally do with people.

What surprised me about it was the fact that while I was busy avoiding being formulaic, the Holy Spirit brought me right back to the same process I normally use anyway (which in light of a recent dream I had telling me about operating in grace over formula is kind of ironic). What we did was we set up this beautiful space inside of her soul with a fountain and a park right next to it where she could meet with her parts and introduce them to Jesus and where he could bring those parts healing and life. The fountain is filled perpetually with the water of life, and there are streams of it that flow throughout the garden so that anywhere someone is, they always have access to living water. Throughout the garden, we planted trees of life that are constantly bearing fruit which anyone can take and eat at any time. The Holy Spirit led this sister to do one more thing that again, I normally do with people, but I hadn’t told her about. The Holy Spirit put on her heart to have something in this park where the parts could come eat of the bread of life at any time.

What the Holy Spirit showed her was this basket of food that was essentially both bread and scripture verses they could read that would encourage them at the same time. What she was seeing is something the Bible references, but that I had not mentioned to her— have something that constantly provides the bread of life for the parts to eat anytime they are hungry. What she was seeing in her soul was a visible manifestation of Word as bread, revealed to her directly by the Holy Spirit.

Theologically, we need to remember that when Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, and when Satan came to tempt Jesus, telling Jesus to turn rocks into bread, Jesus replied by explaining that we do not only live on bread, but every Word that proceeds from the father. John 1 tells us that Jesus is the living word, and elsewhere in John Jesus invited us to eat of the bread of life. Word is bread. So what was being offered to all of these parts in this woman’s system, in the dimension of her soul, was the same spiritual reality—that Word is bread and they can consume God‘s word at any time and be filled and sustained. It was really cool to be a part of that moment. I also cast out some demons which she felt leave, and God brought some really wonderful life and peace and freedom to her during that time of prayer.

A little later that evening, I was briefly sharing with another friend about that session. Before going further, let me be clear, anytime I do inner healing work with somebody, the things we talk about are confidential. When I share about these moments with someone who was not present, I don’t share names, and at times I don’t even give the gender of the individual involved. Often I will also be vague about the details of what we specifically prayed about. When I write about them in articles, sometimes I switch to the opposite gender in my writing and sometimes I don’t, so the reader truly doesn’t have a clue either way. In other words, I take confidentiality seriously—and having worked in the medical field for over 18 years, I have a lot of experience maintaining confidentiality. All of that simply to say that what I shared with another friend did not include who this wonderful sister in the Lord was, or any of the actual matters themselves that we discussed. What I shared with this other friend of mine is the same thing I’m sharing with you right now— that I was surprised that God had me do the same thing I normally do with people, as well as about the details of the park the Lord had us set up in her soul for later use.

While I was sharing that, Jesus took my friend into her own encounter. I wasn’t praying for her—I was simply telling get a testimony of what God had done shortly before that. As a result of me sharing that though, the Lord took her into a forest by a spring of water that was bubbling up. She shared that the water was more clean and refreshing than anything she had ever tasted. Recognizing that Jesus was bringing her into the same type of encounter that I tend to usher other people into when I do inner healing work, I asked for every part of her soul that was carrying any pain and problems to come to that spring and to drink of the water and to meet Jesus who was standing right there, and to receive life.

There was only one part who showed up, which I find fairly uncommon simply because usually more than one part show up when I ask for something like that. But this one part is the one that needed the ministry, so it was great. It was really evident the Holy Spirit was the one guiding this time of spontaneous prayer, and Jesus ministered freedom to this part. I took my friend through some verbal renunciation, shifting some mindsets, breaking off certain agreements, and then did some brief emotional healing prayer and took authority over demons and cast them out.

When we ended the phone call, I could tell that the Lord was going to spend some time continuing to minister to her, and she got off the phone largely so she could settle into that. It was really good. And again, just telling a testimony of what I had done with this other woman sparked the same type of spiritual activity for my friend.

Now, I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. The Lord has been nudging me recently to do some more overt ministry and to start offering courses and seminars. So, in light of God doing some very conspicuous things related to inner healing, all of which highlighted my method that I wasn’t planning to use, I am going to hold a webinar to teach people this method to begin working with their own parts. The webinar itself will be free. However, donations are welcomed and encouraged if for no other reason than because the technology to host the webinar is not free. Additionally, there is a scriptural principle behind honoring those who teach us things and receiving blessing as a result. But it truly is free, so whether you have funds or not, choose to give or not, please come join us and get some freedom!

The webinar will be held on June 29th at 8pm EST (event link here). We will cover some basics of fragmentation and soul parts to get people on the same page. I will explain the method and the “why” of the method. We will have time for questions, have a group activation/practice, a time for people to share what they experienced, and if there is time left, we can take some more questions. I am planning for it to be a 2-hour event, though depending on group interaction it may take less time. If you join my email list (there should be a place to enroll near the top of this page, and if not go to the front page www.thekingsofeden.com and enroll at the signup there) I will send out emails prior to the event. Sign-up is not required, although RSVP is encouraged at the Facebook event link here

Why Being a Prophetic Feeler Can Be Overwhelming (And What To Do About It)

A friend once wrote me a message and asked me the following question: “Do you have any suggestions for how someone way too empathetic can work with and love whoever they’re helping without being swallowed up by the painful stuff being addressed? Or does that indicate some brokenness in itself?”

I thought this was a really great question, and the answer is both extremely simple and highly complex. The simple answer to this question is “You need inner healing and deliverance.” As you can guess, I will now give you the complex answer, so buckle in.

Quite often when someone is “too empathetic” and they get absolutely steamrolled by other people’s emotional junk, it is usually unhealed emotional wounds on behalf of the person who is receiving the emotional overload. The new vogue thing in prophetic circles seems to be “I’m a prophetic feeler” but in reality most of the time people are just super unhealed and their soul is so open to other people’s emotions that they have trouble having internal emotional and energetic boundaries. This means that there is what I would essentially consider emotional contamination coming from the other person that you are receiving and being overwhelmed by because you lack the internal barriers and protections that someone normally would have in place to prevent that from happening.

As for why this subject comes up and people find it overwhelming, that is because it absolutely can be overwhelming. The key for a “prophetic feeler” is that you must identify

1) what burdens God is giving you and

2) what issues you are picking up on that aren’t yours to bear and

3) what of the burdens you are picking up is due to you being unhealed and far too wide open

“Oh, but Michael, you don’t understand. If it had happened to you then you’d understand what it is like.”

Oh, I understand perfectly well. I avoid most non-God-focused events with large crowds for a reason—not because I *don’t* understand. I don’t even find stores that are very busy and full of people enjoyable. It’s too chaotic and really unenjoyable. I was in Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and it was packed. Absolutely teeming with people. I expressly remember having the thought at that time that “this is exactly why I avoid these types of situations.” It can be intense at times. I just don’t talk about it very much and haven’t styled myself as a “prophetic feeler” because I don’t really think the title adequately describes what is going on for me.

Now, I have a dear friend who I go on mission trips with and she and her husband are both absolutely awesome. They are some of my favorite people to minister in the nations with. She is absolutely what I would term a “prophetic feeler” (and I’m fairly certain she would say that she is if you asked her), and at times the Lord will have her absorb the painful emotions of others. In my opinion it’s not actually hard to do, and it’s a skill anyone can learn, but yes, some people are more naturally gifted and/or inclined to it than others, and some have a special divine grace for it as well. I don’t know which of those categories I fall into, but I know how to do it and at times have to be very intentional not to.

Well, I was on a ministry trip with this friend and she mentioned how sad she was feeling constantly. In talking a bit, we recognized that she felt that way because she was picking up on and processing some pretty intense emotional stuff that I and another person on the trip were each dealing with. And sometime after she got on her flight, thereby leaving our presence, the emotional difficulty literally just cut off like someone turned water off from a running faucet. Our emotions were literally the source of her problem, and it is because she was engaging in a form of intercession, which among other things means “to bear and carry away.”

Now, on one occasion a few of us did discuss the whole thing about feeling other people’s feelings and carrying those burdens, and she shared how she used to be absolutely floored for a month or so after a mission trip because of all the emotional baggage she picked up and carried away from others. Eventually the Lord intervened and taught her how to release those emotions after she picked them up so she wasn’t carrying hundreds of people’s emotional pain for months or years at a time. And this ties in with what I was saying in the beginning about being too open and absorbing everything. In addition to needing to have a bit more of a firm hold on what we do and don’t absorb is something I think most prophetic feelers also need to learn—how to take whatever they are picking up, give it to the Lord, and fully release it from their own soul. Intercession is, among other things, the ability to “bear and carry away” burdens. It is not bad to be able to bear someone else’s burden, but it is extremely unhealthy to pick up that burden and not set it back down in the loving hands of the One who already pre-planned to carry it away for all of us on the cross.

If you consider yourself to be a “prophetic feeler” and want to get better at managing it, as well as releasing all of the things you’ve picked up from others that aren’t your burden to bear long-term, I have a few suggestions. First, I encourage you to get the book Emotional Healing in Three Easy Steps by Praying Medic. It gives a very simple prayer template that can help you pray through releasing any emotions you are feeling regardless of whether they originated with you or not. Second, I encourage you to connect with an inner healing minister who can help you become more internally healthy yourself and thus address that issue of internal barriers I mentioned earlier (links listed below the article). Third, I encourage you to check out the resources that Freedom Flowers has to offer for emotional health, and specifically I recommend the Yarrow Shield essence which is specifically designed for helping those who tend to pick up other people’s emotional and energetic “stuff” and can get overwhelmed by it.

Prayer Ministers

Integrated Life Strategies – Robin Perry Braun

WhenYouNeedGrace.com – Grace

Transformations Community – Adena Hodges

Risen Light Works – Danielle

Holy Fire Disciples – Mason Ledbetter

Grace Over Formula

I had a dream on January 18^th of this year that I want to share with you, as well as the interpretation and the message it carries for all of us. The dream itself was pretty short. I was at my old property and standing at the fence talking to the neighbor. In real life this neighbor doesn’t exist, but in the dream she was a woman who had a very young child and she needed food for the kid. For some reason I was in possession of a container of Similac baby formula that I had sitting on my pantry shelf, and I could see it on my shelf while I was talking to her (don’t ask me how, dreams can be weird). I offered to give her the baby formula, and she politely declined. Instead of letting me give her the food, she gave me a $5 bill. That was the end of the dream. Upon waking, it didn’t take long to identify the message of the dream, because the dream symbols were fairly clear and it was a play on words—grace instead of formula.

Sometimes we can get so busy trying to do things the way we have always done it before or the way everyone else is telling us that something works that we forget we have the Spirit of the Living God inside us and at our disposal 24/7. This reminds me of something a friend said to me in a conversation just the other day, which was that sometimes people think using the prophetic for daily life things is cheating. Its not.

When I was in college, I had one class where the professor gave us four essays that we could prepare for prior to each exam, as we would each get one of them on the test. He was only ever going to give each of us one of them, but it was random as to which essay question each of us would get, so if someone wanted to perform well they had to research to prepare to answer all of them. The morning of each test, I would ask the Holy Spirit to help me get the essay question I wanted—the one of the four I felt I was the most prepared to answer well. Once on the ride to class (Penn State has a campus bus system because it’s a large campus) the Holy Spirit said “move one seat to the left”. That might not mean much to anyone else, but it was a very straightforward answer to me because, as most students do after a few weeks in any class, we all sat in the same seats out of habit (and I got a dirty look from the girl who normally sat in the seat I took that day, as it was one to the left of my normal seat). On the day of the final exam, because finals were often held in different rooms and at different times than normal, I had never been in the classroom so the Holy Spirit showed me a vision of an aerial layout of the seats in the classroom, highlighting the one I should sit in with the color blue. When I arrived I got distracted and completely forgot to look for my special seat, and by the time I realized it, most of the seats were filled. I looked around the room and then realized I was already sitting in it! God had guided me to the right seat anyway.

The Holy Spirit is our ultimate cheat code for life. He is the Spirit of Wisdom, Revelation, Knowledge, and Counsel, so it seems only prudent that if we need any of those things that we start by asking Him for them. But in order to take advantage of that, we have to be willing to set aside our well-planned formulas for things and learn to flow in grace. That doesn’t mean we should never make plans of any kind, but especially when it comes to our spiritual life, when we operate from a position of grace we will be able to set aside our rote formulas for accessing God, getting things done in prayer, and all of the other “ways” we have learned over the years to get God to do things. Why? Because often those things are based on running a formula. For example, there is a chapter in my book “The Power of Impartation” that explains multiple spiritual laws in depth. That information is both useful and helpful, but there are times when we are so busy trying to work spiritual laws to our benefit that we miss out on an even higher good that God has prepared for us.

When we are able to live from grace, God’s divine empowerment in our lives, we can transcend all formulas and patterns and be led by His Spirit in all we say and do. And I’m not there by any means, but I do feel this is a valuable reminder for all of us.

As we close, I want to leave you with a resource that might be helpful. I haven’t read this book yet myself, but it came to mind as I was writing this article, and I suspect it is because the Holy Spirit is nudging me to share it with you all—so that’s what I’m going to do! The book is called “Grace Over Grind: How Grace Will Take Your Business Where Grinding Can’t” by Shae Bynes. In her own words, she is the “Founder and Chief Fire Igniter of Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur,” and this book is actually an expanded version celebrating the 5^th anniversary of the book. While it is geared toward business, I suspect the principles in it can translate to other areas of life as well, and if you’re a kingdom-minded business owner then Shae is someone you’ll want to get in touch with. And if you like what she says, she also has a podcast you can listen to as well. Be well, be blessed, and may you go forth with grace!

Building an “As You Go” Lifestyle

One of the things I learned early on in my journey into the charismatic and things involving the power of the Holy Spirit was that so much of it is meant to be done on a daily basis as we go throughout life. I remember hearing Bill Johnsons preach once and he was explaining how a visitor came to Bethel church and asked to go out with their “mall ministry.” Bill was confused and said something to the effect of “we don’t have a mall ministry. What are you talking about?” The guy referenced all the stories Bill would tell about people getting divinely healed at the mall. Bill’s response was something along the lines of “Yeah, we don’t have a mall ministry. We have parishioners who shop.” So much of life as a believer is, I think, meant to be ministry flowing naturally out of who we are in Him as we go through our daily life. We are meant to build an “as you go” lifestyle.

Matthew 10:7-8 says, “As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” The context of this was when Jesus sent out his twelve apostles to go minister, but I think there is a principle we can glean from this passage that goes beyond the specifics of what Jesus sent them to do. I believe that as followers of Jesus it is perfectly fine to be intentional and have times we set aside to “do ministry.” There is nothing wrong with that. However, I believe that Kingdom is meant to be a lifestyle, not a task we do. The way we minister to people and expand the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven will happen most effectively if every single believer simply lives an As You Go lifestyle.

You see, the vast majority of people who call ourselves “Christians” simply go to church on Sunday and try to “live a good life.” But “being good” is not remotely the same thing as “being dangerous to powers of darkness.” And I don’t think being good is something to attain to. Being dangerous, however, is very much something I aspire to be. And the most effective way to do that is to live an intentional life where every day is ministry as a natural outflow of who we are. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God already pre-planned things for us to do. Not because we have to do things to earn His love or favor or blessing, but because we *already have* His love, favor, and blessing the works are a natural outflow of who we are—or at least they should be. And if they’re not, then its perfectly fine to be intentional about building it into our lives much like we start building any other habit.

This means that if we see someone who is sick or injured and we are out in public (the same applies if we’re not in public) then its perfectly fine to approach them and ask if they want prayer for healing. The more we do it the better we will get at reading the situation, hearing from the Holy Spirit about what to do, etc., but its better to start *somewhere* than to do nothing and then wonder why God never shows up. In many ways its pretty simple. If I don’t pray for someone, they won’t get healed. If I do pray for someone it is significantly more likely they will get healed than the guarantee that they won’t if I don’t.

I want to push this idea one step further though. When I hear people talk about divine healing and an As You Go lifestyle I only ever hear them speak in terms of physical healing. Why can’t we do the same for emotions? I believe inner healing work should be a significant part of an As You Go lifestyle, but most people aren’t equipped to do that, and I think that’s sad. The basics of emotional healing are honestly pretty simple. We pray, we ask God to do something, He does it to a greater or lesser degree, and as needed we pray more/again to solve the problem. Yes, there are ways we can get really good at it, and yes there are all kinds of prayer tools and such out there that are beneficial, and yes, we can also work with a prayer minister one-on-one to really target deep issues. I think all of those things are valuable and important, but if I had one wish in this area it would be that the Body of Christ as a whole would get really good at dealing with emotional things with one another as they randomly come up in life.

When we get triggered by something emotionally, there are some specific reasons why praying for that matter right at that time make it far easier to access and get healed than it is by repressing the feelings and then trying to drag them back up later to deal with and heal. But because most people are not well-equipped to help someone pray through something right in that moment, most of the time we let those opportunities pass us by. I firmly believe that every person alive should do deep inner healing work because everyone has “stuff” they need to deal with. And yet a comparative few:

1) can afford it (as most people who do this do it full-time and thus need some form of income to be able to do what they do)

2) stick with it long enough to see deep transformative results

I think part of this is due to a lack of understanding about the need. If more people understood why this was needed they would get help themselves without waiting until the emotional pain got bad enough they couldn’t *not* do it, and also more people would learn how to help others heal their emotions and then we could do inner healing on-the-go like we can do with physical healing. For example, just the other day I was on the phone talking to a friend and something came up for him. I forget what the issue was, but we literally spent less than 5 minutes praying through the thing, and then went right back to whatever we were talking about before. We didn’t have to make a big deal about it, it didn’t require us to spend an hour digging into his past to uncover every single possible hidden thing that might have related to it in some way, and we were able to address the matter in prayer and keep going with normal life. Now, to be fair, that was made possible by two things—first, I’m pretty good at inner healing so I have some of the skill, experience, and applied spiritual power needed to walk through something like that quickly and easily, and second, both of us have a mindset where inner healing can be part of a lifestyle so I didn’t have to do any teaching, convince him that we could do it in a few minutes, or any of the other things I find I usually have to do in order to quickly help someone with something. But my heart’s desire is that we as the Body of Christ collectively would become not only good at this, but so accustomed to this being part of the As You Go that most of the time people don’t have to set aside an hour or two of time for special inner healing sessions because they just get healed as a result of living life in community with others. It’s a very doable goal, but it requires people to first recognize the need in their own life and in the lives of those around them, and then it requires a community of people to make a change.

Now whether you currently live in a community of people where this is already happening or not, I want to leave you with some tools to start moving forward on your own inner healing journey. I am going to share links to a bunch books to educate yourself (the first one is a simple prayer template I use all the time and I highly recommend it because it’s fast to pray through and easy to learn) to a lesser or greater degree about inner healing and deliverance, to flower essences you can use to help speed along the process of emotional healing, and links to prayer ministers I recommend if you want to do a deeper dive on your own emotional healing and personal transformation journey.

Rewrite The Stars – A Different Governance

I was out late with a friend one evening before my move to Ohio. We went to a sort of Portland-y food-fusion restaurant and had dinner and these margarita-like wine-slushy drinks that, for someone like me who doesn’t really enjoy wine, actually tasted pretty good. We talked about a wide range of things, but during the conversation we ended up talking about the movie The Greatest Showman, and she mentioned that she really loved the song “A Million Dreams“. Having not seen the movie, I wasn’t sure if I knew the song (but it turns out later in listening to it that I actually did recognize it, and the song is absolute fire). As conversations go, this ended up sliding us sideways into talking about other songs from the movie, and I began telling her about how I really love the song “Rewrite the Stars“, and what the Lord began speaking to my heart the first time I heard it. I wrote a bit about this in my recent article titled “A New Energy System“, discussing how we are meant not to be governed by the sun, moon, and stars (and other celestial bodies) but rather to govern over them, and in talking about the song with my friend, it made me think of some things I hadn’t shared in that article. I want to take a look at them here.

If you want to listen to the song you can catch it here

Having not seen the movie I’m not overly familiar with the plot, but from the little I gather there appears to be a bit of a Romeo-and-Juliet-style star-crossed-lovers scenario, which leads to the scene where this song gets sung. I’m not sharing the entire song here, but the lyrics that stood out to me and how this song communicates part of what I was saying in that blog.

“You claim it’s not in the cards
And fate is pulling you miles away
And out of reach from me
But you’re here in my heart
So who can stop me if I decide that you’re my destiny?

What if we rewrite the stars?
Say you were made to be mine
Nothing could keep us apart
You’d be the one I was meant to find
It’s up to you, and it’s up to me
No one can say what we get to be
So why don’t we rewrite the stars?
Maybe the world could be ours, tonight

. . . . . . .

How do we rewrite the stars?
Say you were made to be mine
Nothing can keep us apart
‘Cause you are the one I was meant to find
It’s up to you, and it’s up to me
No one can say what we get to be
Why don’t we rewrite the stars?
Changing the world to be ours . . .”

The song is all about how our destiny is guided and determined by the stars, which is a reference to astrology and astrological determinings, in that the positions of the stars and the messages found in those things are what will determine our path in life. The first line is a reference to Tarot, with the idea that one’s fate and destiny is tied to what casting cards through divination magic will reveal to us about our future, and as it continues it mentions how fate is keeping the two apart. Whether through astrology, tarot, or other magical systems, the concept is that fate is this mystical force of pre-determination that has already decided what will and will not occur in our lives. We could liken it a bit to God preparing good works in advance for us to do, but the difference is that fate is an impartial force whereas our heavenly Father makes plans and then walks them out with us relationally, not stooping to the method of control and removal of free will that fate employs. Which is part of why I like these lyrics so much. Astrology, divination, and related oracular arts are all about tying us into determined futures and linking our power and authority and our bloodlines into the future that the fallen angels want to create, and the fact is they cannot do that without our assistance, which is why some of these practices are so imperative for them to seduce people into.

On the other hand, our Heavenly Father has given us power and authority over all of these things, and we get to partner with Him to walk out a much higher calling. So as the song says, “what if we rewrite the stars?” The one character seemed to understand that “no one can say what we get to be.” The demonic and their divinatory practices do not get to overwrite, override, or control our path as followers of Jesus, nor should the celestial bodies, as we are meant to govern over them, not be ruled by them.

The song goes on to ask the question “How do we rewrite the stars?” And isn’t that what we as believers need to understand? How do we as followers of Jesus, ones who have been raised up to rule and reign with Him, remove ourselves from under the reign of creation and learn to govern over it? How do we rewrite the stars? How do we change the means by which we function in the cosmos, no longer being bound by their mandates and decrees? I don’t have the answers to all of this, but I do believe that it begins within us. In my book The Gospel of Life and Immortality I talk about the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the body, and how we first engage the transfiguration of our bodies as the firstfruits, and then from there we will see all creation become transfigured as we, the sons and daughters of the Most High release it from its bondage to decay and death. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book, and if you are interested in this subject you can also check out my friend Fiorella Giordano’s course on the New Creation Continuum which discusses related matters. Be blessed!

Jesus, Why Do You Love Me?

For anyone who has followed The Kings of Eden for any length of time, you will know that I tend to write a good bit about personal transformation—inner healing, deliverance, mind renewal, and doing these things with fragmented parts of the soul. I do this because I believe it is a vital part of the life of any follower of Jesus, and that if we want to truly run the race marked out for us as Hebrews 12:1 tells us, we must also do what it says in that same passage to throw off every hindrance and sin. Now, if I never put any of my own teachings into practice then not only would I quickly run out of things to write about on these subjects, but I wouldn’t see any of the benefits myself. I want to share with you something that happened in the past few weeks when I took some time to sit with Jesus and process something I was finding myself questioning inside—something that multiples of parts were asking in that moment and that in some ways I find myself asking from time to time as well: “Jesus, why do you love me?”

It’s such a simple question and at the same time a deeply profound one. Because why does Jesus love us? Because it’s easy for me to look at my own life and see the unlovely things. It’s easy for me to judge myself, to look at things I’m ashamed of, ways I have hurt other people, and identify the things about me that simply don’t match up with His kindness, goodness, and love. And you know what makes it even more scandalous? When I talk to Him about it, He always confirms not just that He loves me, but that He is proud of me

What I settled on in that moment with Him is something also somewhat simple yet profound—that Jesus loves me simply because He determined to. You see, I think that even outside of the fact that the Bible explicitly states it, we all know on some level that no amount of our good deeds can ever earn us God’s love or favor or His pride or pleasure in us. Which means that Jesus loves me simply because he decided to love me. And if He decided to love me aside from anything I said or did, then nothing I say or do will be able to remove that love because it was never a determining factor to begin with. My behavior and thoughts and life choices were never part of the equation to begin with! And that should be a really freeing realization to us—not because it means we now have a license to sin because it somehow doesn’t matter because that’s just foolish. It means that none of the ways that I make mistakes or mess up in life have the ability to change a single thing about His love because they were never part of the decision-making process. It means that I can *trust* in His love for me.

Then I felt like the Holy Spirit directed me to think about raising children. I helped raise step-grandkids over the past decade and a half, and so while I don’t have kids of my own yet, I am familiar with raising children. What the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about was the fact that when one of the grandgirls did something that upset me or was disobedient or maybe was even just clumsy and spilled something on the carpet, it didn’t change my love for them. Was there discipline? At times there was. But it wasn’t because I was angry at them (or at least if in that moment I was parenting from a healthy space it wouldn’t be)—it would be because the discipline was meant to teach them something so they would learn and grow and change, not simply for the purpose of punishment. That meant that discipline also rarely involved pain. I’m not a fan of spanking as a general whole because to me, beating a defenseless child is not a healthy or appropriate means of behavior modification in most situations. The time one of the kids almost walked into traffic I was quite comfortable letting them associate that danger with pain, but for almost any other situation I don’t believe that pain is a tool of discipline. And I don’t think our Heavenly Father is that way either. Why? Because if I can think of it, He already thought of it, and I think it would be arrogant to presume I’m a better parent than Him.

As the Holy Spirit was showing all of this to me, all I could do was cry. And in reality everything I am sharing takes far more words to communicate than what He spoke to my heart in just a few moments, but He is so incredibly kind to me, and I often feel that He is far kinder to me than I deserve—but again, isn’t that the point? That I deserve it because He determined I did, not because of anything special about my actions or choices, which also means that I can’t disqualify myself either.

This past October I was honored to be invited as a guest speaker on my friend Barry Maracle’s Wake Up Into Your Dream Podcast and Barry asked me a question he asks every new guest on his show—“If you could describe God in one word, what would it be?” While “love” is the safe answer, and is theologically correct, the one that is most important to me personally is His kindness. Jesus has always been so incredibly kind to me in my life. Not just the ways He has protected me throughout the years, both in the ways I am aware of and the ones I’ll never know, but He is always just so kind and gentle with my heart. In my moments of grief and sorrow and pain, He has always carried me with His kindness, spoken to me gently, and encouraged my heart with what He thinks about me.

If you have ever struggled with understanding the love that God has for us, that Jesus carries for each and every one of us, then I want to leave you with one final thought, something out of the Song of Solomon, which in many ways is a message from Jesus to His Bride, you and me. Song of Solomon 4:9 says, “You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes. . .” It doesn’t say that He stole our hearts with one glance, it says that with one glance of our eyes we ravish His heart. If that single sentence doesn’t express how wild about us Jesus is, I don’t know what will. I pray that for your heart and mine, that our hearts are open to receive a deeper measure of the love of Jesus Christ that is poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit, and that every barrier, every lie, and every hindrance to receiving that love melts away in His kindness, goodness, and light. May you be well, may you be blessed, and may you be filled with His love today. In Jesus’ name, amen.