Help Us to Dream
Your
Dreams oh
Lord!
Your
Dreams oh
Lord!
For over a week now I have been inspired by an unnamed servant in Genesis 24. It has felt like another “first mention” of the word hesed because three out of the four references in this chapter are the first mention in the Bible of God's hesed kind of lovingkindness that English takes elaborate explanation to describe accurately.
Here is the background. Abrahem was getting pretty feeble. He was sensing he didn’t have long to live and didn’t want his son to fall into the idol worship of the Canaanites around him. He called on his senior servant to go back to his own kin in the land where Abrahem once lived to find Issac a wife amongst his own clan of people. When the servant shared his hesitation about this seemingly impossible task, Abrahem’s response was full of faith. “God will send an angel before you to prepare the way.” His servant was not so convinced, “but what if she won’t come with me, can I take Issac there?” Abrahem knew the promises God gave him and believed them and recalled them in the hearing of this servant, “No, Issac cannot go with you because God promised THIS land to us. If the girl won’t come with you, I will not hold you to this promise. Just promise me you won’t look for a wife for him among the Canaanites.” This promise was not just for his family. God promised that ALL the world would be blessed through Abrahem. Indeed, through his eventual seed, I am part of that promise as part of Abrahem's spiritual seed. Jesus continues to impact the world today through us, the body of Christ. As Jesus did we are to do. This unnamed servant didn't know anything about Jesus yet his faith, prayers and worship in this passage put my faith, worship and prayers make mine look quite insufficient for the tasks God has called me in which He wants me to trust Him to accomplish through me. I WILL let this servant's testimony become my testimony and I hope anyone reading this blog will do the same. As the servant arrives at the local watering hole he is faced with a daunting task. First he must find Abrahem's clan amongst all the other clans in a land in which he is likely unfamiliar. He prays to Abrahem’s God, not willing yet to claim that God as his. “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. " From this day forward I want the same kind of response to daunting assignments the Lord gives me. "Lord God make me successful today and show your kindness to others through me." Then came a word of knowledge that taught me far more thant he 'first mention of a word of knowledge' as described in 1 Co 12 provides. God put in his mind to speak out this destiny God would fulfill through this word of knowledge: "See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” Here is what I learned from this servant about a prophetic word of knowledge now that I have experienced them and watched them work in miraculous ways to lead christians and nonchristians into greater faith and reliance on the Lord:
Several times you see this servant not even responding to the events around him until he first bowed down and worshipped the God who showed "hesed" kindness again and again. I am humbled and ask for this servant's kind of hesed love for God and for those in leadership over us. Surely this servant became a believer of God's words coming out of Abrahem and even his own mouth. Surely we will see him on the other side. When he met the parents of Rebekah he told of God’s hesed kindness and faithfulness to Abrahem and Sarah through the miracle son, Issac, and all the ways God has blessed them in every way, especially on this journey. He retold the story of what happened at the town well. Here is her parent’s response: “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.” Divine appointments, prophesies fulfilled have a way of bringing such a sense of awe and reverence to its witnesses that they become willing conduits of that hesed love and can’t help but respond in surrender and willingness to go along with the Lord’s plan. God changes hearts, orchestrates the affairs of our day, sends angels before us to do His bidding, let us not become dulled to Your workings in our life Lord. I CAN'T even imagine such a "yes" from Rebekah's parents. Yet Lord, if you ever ask that of me I can trust YOU can give the rich gracious supply of mercy and hesed to follow through. Every missionary who leaves their homeland has made this sacrifice. There are many left on this planet who still have not one word of the Bible translated into their heart language. Millions in the 10/40 window have not yet heard one time the name of Jesus. I was reminded also by a missionary to Spain that there are unreached peoples who were once reached by CINO's (Christians in name only). Some of these "christians" brutally beat, sexually abused, forbid indigenous people their own culture or language "in the name of their false Christ" and have turned off multiple generations to the beautiful name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Only authentic christianity demonstrating the power of the gospel of the kingdom can possibly shatter the plans of the enemy for these people groups all across our land and in the world. Jesus's power IS more powerful than the Shaman's many have returned to, mixing witchcraft, new age medicine, alcoholism, drug abuse and pharmaceutical power grabs. Yet what satan used for evil GOD has and WILL use for good, even this pandemic. What is toppling? Our dependence and false understandings of Drs. and medicine or even herbal preparations and supplements as our "first line of defense against illness." Is. 53:4-6 tells me that Jesus carried sickness sadness AND sin on the cross. Whether His whippings brought physical or spiritual healing, Hs body paid the price from illness and sickness so we would not have to carry them. One of His many names is Great Physcian and one of His Dad's names is "I AM Healer." The Israelites, despite their sin and failure wandered in the dessert 40 years and ther was not a sick or feeble one among them. That is our destiny and God is using covid to break our reliance on mediine, herbs and supplements to do what only God can do with contagious diseases, mandates destroying livlihoods of people and even IF there are nano technologies in some of the vaccines people took in good faith. God has been in the past few yeasr removing metal from people's bodies all over the world where revival is breaking out and healings and miracles are taking place. His timing is perfect. He is building my faith and the faith of many around me. I believe God is going to use this blog someday, maybe starting today to build the faith of those who read this. God wants to display His glory, His power and His majesty to the humble willing to believe in GOd's kind of success to do impossible things in and through us. I want no other God than this.
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I’ve been so blessed by a Hebrew word that describes God’s love that I just had to share it on this blog. The word is “hesed” and is translated, mercy, kindness, loving kindness, unfailing or steadfast love, depending on context, yet is is much richer than this. My goal in writing this is to become better at demonstrating and receiving hesed kind of lovingkindness from God and others and hope others will as well. Scholars say it would take multiple Bible stories, pictures and volumes of words in English to describe this one Hebrew word. That has fascinated me and Holy Spirit has clearly seen how desperately I need a touch of that love in the days we are living. Maybe someone who reads this will be as blessed as I was to discover these truths.
This word, hesed, is used 250 times in the OT. So that tells me it is an important word. It could be the most important word in the universe because it was the foundation for which the Lord made the world. It was out of his boundless, unfailing, steadfast, merciful love that He chose to create the world knowing what a mess we would make of it. Translators have used multiple words and phrases to explain this love but I think Cory Asbury actually has one of the best explanations of it in his song, “Reckless Love”. Here it is along with an explanation of what He meant by some who may consider "reckless" a reckless word to use to describe God's love. I know I once did until God corrected me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xx0d3R2LoU This word was first mentioned in Genesis 19:19. “Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your compassion (hesed), which you have shown me by saving my life;” Lot is showing his respect and honor for the angel that repeatedly saved his life over the past 24 hours. According to the Strong’s definition of hesed, even if another person is described by this word in the Bible it is generally referring to God. At least that is the case most of the 250 mentions of this word in the Bible. Let me set the stage. In Chapter 18 Abrahem received a prophetic message from God telling him that Sodom and Gomorrah were about to reap destruction because they had reached the limit and a legal right to continue to exist. Abrahem begged God to save 500, then, 40, then 30, then 20, then 10 righteous people. Yet in this 19th chapter of Genesis, it also becomes clear that He will NEVER force people to take God’s way of escape from judgment. We only know that God is good and is not WILLING that ANY perish. We are to resemble that in our pursuits to warn people of danger ahead and even in what we refuse to allow our thoughts to enter in regard to the "whys" of any death, trial or sickness that befalls another. Yet when God sends His warnings, we each have our part to play. Abraham's job was to plea for mercy for those still righteous in that town. The angels were used to warn and rescue the willing and even the reluctantly willing. Lot was dragging his feet when the angel grabbed him and his family. Some people love doing evil and will never want God's rescue plan. Others need a prophetic angel to convince them and drag them away from danger, but isn't God amazingly merciful to even those who are slow to respond. How many even in Sodom did He appear to one more time before that fateful day. One day in heaven we will find out. Meanwhile we who are His kids are called to be image-bearers of His hesed heart of love for His creation. It is a VERY sad reality that grieves the heart of God, their Maker when people have given the devil a legal right and foothold that gives demons permission to take their life. When the choices of people lead to destruction I believe these are some of the toughest moments for God. Yet even tougher for Him is to see the innocent slaughtered, enslaved and bullied. There are seasons on the earth when God has used extraordinary means to rescue the perishing crying out for justice because of His hesed love. To the blinded townspeople of Sodom, justice was that they bully and do with the angelic guests and then to Lot whatever they saw in their own belief systems what they deemed right. Newspapers in the town would have all agreed that Lot and his family had no right to say "no" to that angry mob.We are made in His image to reflect both sides of His "hesed" lovingkindness when truth and error are difficult to discern we need clear guidance from God and sometimes He will send a prophet to give that information to us. Hesed sometimes doesn’t always looks to us like love when it sets limits that others think are restrictive. God only does good things, but we see at times when people chooose paths of destruction, they give legal rights to the devil to build strongholds in their lives of others that evenutally blind them to truth. While God is long suffering, there comes a time when He acts on behalf of the innocent and His kids who are crying out for justice. This is called the "law of reaping what you've sowed." If you sow destruction long enough it will destroy you. If you sow kindness, even if others don't pay it back, God ALWAYS will because He is hesed. There is another law that Bible scholars came up with called the “law of first mention.” Scholars noted that the first time a word is used in the Bible it has the clearest description of that word and should be considered in interpreting the meaning in every future verse. Now that’s what makes this first mention of “hesed” so interesting. It depicts the different responses people have toward God’s “hesed” love that includes a rescue plan for any who will believe and receive it and His judgment of those who repeatedly and defiantly refuse it. Yet some, like Job's wife, are caught up in destruction and God gives us no insight into the reason. She didn't listen to the angel's warning, but neither did Lot at first. He was the one dragging his feet, not his wife. We aren't to make those judgments as to why the seemingly innocent die along with the wicked at times like that. We must take that thought captive every time we "wonder if this was a just judgment or simply the fall-out of living in a sin-ruined world. Yet this first mention of hesed is a perfect picture to help us see into the kind of Savior God would someday bring to earth to save us from hell's fire which all deserve. Lot was an eye witness to all these different responses that were magnified over the past 24 hours of his life before he spoke so kindly to the angels. It’s not every day you get rescued by an angel. His words demonstrate his gratitude and humility over their rescue while so many others, including his own wife, did not make it out alive. Thank You God for this “hesed” love You are showing in our day. You saved us to demonstrate that love in such tangible, out-of-bounds persistence that we will be “a sweet perfume to those who are being saved and the smell of death to those who are perishing.” Yet we preach Christ and Him crucified in order that we have the privilege of participating in reaching and saving some and we hope MANY in these days. Friday, January 21, 2022 1:35 am- I am awakened and told “It’s time to write down my battle plan for my intercessors for this hour.” “Hear the word of the Lord: I am waiting for the right time to strike hard at the plans of the enemy. When all the voices of my intercessors are worshipping together, believing in my words, in the Bible and prophetically in my growing ekklesia it will reach a crescendo until it will be like a trumpet call to my ears. It is time to pray when I call you to prayer, anytime I call you away and not when YOU feel like it. I’ve called to my bride often and she has loved her slumber and has turned over on her bed and said,”later.” But I say to my slumbering bride, “Now I need my bride to be on full alert, praying unceasingly, worshipping unceasingly until the shaking begins. That is your sign that I have entered the battle with my host. It is no longer time to go your own way. It is time for worship and dance, declaring and proclaiming. Vengeance is mine says the Lord but don’t rejoice in the vengeance, rejoice in the harvest what ever form it takes. The wicked will drop dead unexpectedly yet those who do not, will cry for the rocks to fall on them but they will not because the fear of the Lord will fall so heavily on them that many, yes I say MANY will repent, fall on their faces and begin to do my bidding. The shaking will be in my house and in every sphere of influence. The rebellious and resistant ones who stubbornly persist in closing their ears to my chastening hand and go their own way will drop dead or be found on a sick bed for I will give them over to the enemy for a fortnight until they see the errors of their ways and will repent. Only I know which hearts are too hard to repent because they have not heeded multiple warnings to stand up and be counted and to stop resisting my spirit and my leading. In some churches people will be dropping like flies while in other churches one or two untimely deaths will awaken the rest of the bride in that church. After my bride is fully awakened by the shaking and is worshipping me, seeking my face with all her heart and no longer going her own way, I can act on the other 6 spheres of influence in this nation and in other nations as well. it WILL start in the house of God first. In fact it already has but it will accelerate in this hour. Stay close to me, keep your ears wide open. Don’t turn from the right or the left unless I say so, don’t speak unless you are sure I have given you the words. It is time to be silent before me when you are not worshipping or following my lead on declarations, decrees, proclamations and orders for your angel armies to follow. There will be no recess for awhile. There will be no time outs. Remember the American Hero who had to stay in a battle for 71 days without stopping. That American Hero Series on Elijah Streams is prophetic. That series came out yesterday and is prophetic for the season you are entering. YOUR worship will shorten the days, YOUR persistence in praying unceasingly will also shorten the season. YOUR trust in my timing, YOUR refusal of fear, YOUR refusal to back down and keep going forward one step at a time all will shorten the days of battle. If the battle drags on, know that it is because my bride has resisted her role and many remain missing in action.”
When I was awakened and again now after this prophecy there is a song running through my head and I heard Holy Spirit say: “Write down the words to that song.” So here are the words to: Braveheart (Dear daughter) by Tasha Layton My love is safe, it only gives it doesn’t take. So breath it in, let it be truth where lies have been. Open up your eyes, darling, lift your head, dare to take My hand and hold on. Don’t you give up now when it all falls apart. Let Me be the one you lean on when you’re not strong enough dear daughter, don’t let go. My love is kind, it only heals it never harms so breathe it in, let there be life where death has been. Open up your eyes darling lift your head. Dare to take My hand and hold on….You don’t have to hold this you can let the pieces fall down, I’ll be right here with you to carry you through it all dear daughter don’t let go. Look at how far you’ve come and you’re still breathing. You’e got a brake heart, such a brave heart. Maybe there’s someone out there who needs to know that they’ve got a brave heart, such a brave heart.” Maybe there’s someone out there who needs to know that: Don’t you give up now when it all falls apart, let Me be the One you lean on when you’re not strong enough, dear daughter, don’t let go. You don’t have to hold this you can let the pieces fall down, I’ll be right here with you to carry you through it all dear daughter, you’ve got a brave heart, You’ve got a brave heart so don’t let go. “I hear your protest to these words.” ‘You said some will die suddenly, yet You never harm how can that be?’ “But I say, ‘The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, I HAVE COME THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE LIFE AND HAVE IT ABUNDANTLY.’ “Those who die suddenly have resisted my spirit so long that I am giving them over to the desires of their spiritual enemies because they loved darkness rather than light. Those who are placed on sickbeds have not wanted my gentle rebukes and I have given them over to their spiritual enemies that they will NO longer WANT that enemy. As soon as they cry out to me with true repentance, agreeing to no longer resist My Spirit, they WILL return and can experience My abundant life kindnesses in glorious ways that waken these slumbering brides who would not be aroused by gentle nudges as my Ekklesia has done. Welcome those parts of my body with open arms. Remember now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This seems like such a crazy time to be living. yet I think that all of heaven is watching with excitement! Why? The disciplines we are learning in a season such as this is developing character qualities we will need for what is to come tomorrow and the next day. Hebrews 12:1 says there is a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on, praying with Jesus, who knows what else they are doing but sometimes I sense their gaze and participation with my times of praise and worship with Jesus. We were created "for such a time as this." We WILL grow into the "new shoes" we are being called to wear in this season. There is an old praise chorus that reminds me of this. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts (those are angels), Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. AMEN!Has God forgotten us? What is going on? God is active in these days. He is the protector of His people and also of their hearts. Sometimes we need a real shaking to see what we are really trusting in. Are we trusting in God's words found in the Bible or the words of others more? Are we so in love with our comfort that we won't speak true but uncomfortable words with those who do not yet know Jesus? Are we more interested in being liked by people than being loved by God and loving God back.? All the shaking that is going on now is to show us what needs to go away in our lives and what needs to come into our lives so we can reach an amazing destiny God has waiting for us. Here is what we are told in psalm 139. ALL the days ordained for us were written in His book before one of them came to be. God has an amazing plan for our life. It is abundantly greater than anything we could dream about or think He'd want to give us. H wants us to know our destiny even more than we want to know what He's planned for us. How do we discover that destiny? We must be willing to spend time getting to know God, by reading the Bible. If you find it a stuffy, hard to understand book, may I suggest finding on www.Biblegateway.com and try out different versions of the Bible until you find one in your heart language (one that speaks to your heart). The one that best speaks to my heart is the Passion Translation and many of the books you can find on youtube to listen to it if that is easier for you than reading it. Another way to connect is to take time to thank God for all the blessings He has given you and to worship him. Did you know He inhabits the praise of His people? Did you know God actually created us to worship Him?When we take time, not just to listen to a song of worship but sing it to God and to your own heart, it WILL drown out the negative voices all around you? Sometimes journaling what you've learned in a worship song or the Bible will help you draw closer to God. He is omniscient. That word means He knows everything. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows our every thought BEFORE we think it. Yet even though He knows everything going on in your life, He wants you to be honest and vulnerable before Him. You can tell him your sorrows, even if He knows all about them, He cares and wants to comfort us through the hard times and rejoice with us when we are rejoicing. Like a good friend He wants to hear from us a lot through the day. He asks us to pray unceasingly and that simply means include Him in on your ups and downs, in the mundane, and during those special moments.
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