HEARING GOD'S MESSAGE - TWICE AND IT'S ESTABLISHED

 

HEARING GOD’S MESSAGE – TWICE AND IT’S ESTABLISHED

We all want to hear from God. But how do we learn to recognize His voice? We practice “listening” to our spiritual five senses. God uses these to speak to our hearts, minds, and emotions. But He often puts in a bonus by giving us the DOUBLE. Genesis 41:32 tells us: “And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.”

 

Let me give you an example that happened to me. I heard a teaching about a certain type of demon that I didn’t know anything about—the teacher called it a water spirit. Since I’m very interested in removing demons from God’s people, I thought about looking further into these water spirits. A few days went by, and I thought about it, but I didn’t do anything. Then when I was looking for a picture to go with one of my posts, the photo with the ocean is what I found.

 

At first, when I looked at this picture, I was hesitant about using it. I thought the point of view, so close to the edge, and the waves coming up over the rocks was kind of scary looking. But immediately God reminded me of the scripture: “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men” (Ps. 115:16). God was letting me know that I needed to study this water thing further.

 

What I want you to see is that God doubled His instructions for me: First by HEARING (the teaching), then by SEEING the photo. I’m sure He’s done this for you too. When we see this kind of thing in the Bible, we can expect God to do it for us too. We need to keep our spiritual senses open to His revelations. When God doubles up on a revelation to us, it means we need to pay attention. God gave the same dream to Pharaoh twice to “establish” it. The word used for “establish” in Genesis 41:32 means “fixed, prepared, settled, made firm, set up.”

 

God may work through hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, or a general sense of just knowing. Let’s be sensitive to those spiritual senses, and the DOUBLE, and respond to what the Lord has for us.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

What if you took an average ordinary person, gave them an incredible cache of weapons and skills to become extraordinary beyond their wildest dreams?

 

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SNIPPETS OF HEAVEN

SNIPPETS OF HEAVEN

I went out to my backyard and started watering by hand. I sprayed the water way up into my tree to make rainbows. It was around 6 pm, a pleasant 70 degrees, the clouds were turning pink as the sun was setting, and it was perfectly still. Neighbors across the street were having a small get-together, children quietly playing and adults sitting at the table chatting. One father was holding his little baby, and everyone seemed to be having a nice time. Everything in that hour was so wonderful it felt like I was experiencing a snippet of heaven.

 

I really cherish those times when everything is good. I believe God wants us to have more of those sweet times here on earth. I know that we have work to do, difficult things to take care of, and oh so many decisions to make, and so many serious problems to solve. But I also know God has given us sweet moments of pure delight so that we can carry on with hope. Last night was one of those moments, and I feel refreshed today.

 

When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he said:

 

“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matt. 6:7-8).

 

Note that Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t ask for things because God already knows what you need.” Instead, Jesus said God knows what you need to ask for. Then Jesus goes on to tell his disciples a few things God knows we need, and snippets from heaven are among them.

 

Jesus continues:

 

“After this manner therefore pray ye: ‘Our Father which is in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth,’” [There it is!] “’as it is in heaven’” (v. 10).

 

Our God is in heaven. He knows how great heaven is, and God Himself wants us to experience His heaven, even if it’s only in snippets, here on earth! And not only that, but Jesus said that God says we need those experiences and those sweet times of heaven on earth. He knows we need it, and we are supposed to be asking Him for it. That’s what Jesus is trying to tell us about having a genuine relationship with the one true God, Who has chosen us to be His children.

 

We are to recognize our God as a loving Father who knows we need times of heaven on earth, and He’s got them to give us. So I’m praying for more times like last night for myself and beautiful gifts of times of heaven on earth for all of you, as you begin to ask Him in prayer for those experiences like Jesus instructed.

 

Love, Carolyn 

 

THE STORY OF GIDEON

THE STORY OF GIDEON

This morning Jane and I were talking about what each of us does to make the world we live in a better place. Jane puts out her intel report daily to interested people who want to know what’s going on in politics, vaccines, human trafficking, financial situations, etc., worldwide. What I do is put out weekly preach letters, and I pray a particular prayer every day to rid the world of the spiritual “rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph.6:12). Being a 60s child, I sometimes get tempted to think maybe what I’m doing now is too small. Should I be out there protesting and going to rallies like I did in the 60s and 70s? But the Lord’s answer is always the same: “No, you are doing exactly what I want you to do, and you are changing the world from right where you are.” And I’m perfectly satisfied with His answer, even though I can’t tell you how often I have to ask to hear Him repeat it! I’m sure some of you are asking the same questions: Am I doing enough? What else can I do? Lord, what is it You want me to do?

 

There are just some things we’ll not be able to get fully answered until we go through them. We’ve heard the phrase: “There’s a reason for everything.” But the second half of that should be: “But we don’t get to know all the reasons ahead of time.” That’s where trust and pure obedience come in. The story of Gideon and his small band of Bible heroes teaches us about trusting God, doing what He says, and seeing the great results we never knew would be our destiny.

 

The story of the life of Gideon begins with God allowing the Israelites to be dominated, for seven years, by the Midianites. Why? Because “the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judg. 6:1). The Midianites were a wandering band of nomads who, with help from the Amalekites and others, would make regular attacks on the Israelites. 

 

“They encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it” (Judg. 6:4-5).

 

The Israelites were hiding in caves, and they were in poverty. So God sent an angel to a young man named Gideon, who was threshing wheat near a winepress to avoid detection at the time of the angel’s visit. The angel came to him and said: “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour” (Judg. 6:12). Gideon was only a young man, definitely not a man of valour. But God saw him differently from how he saw himself. And that’s an excellent lesson for us. We must see ourselves through the eyes of the Lord only.

 

Then Gideon questioned: “Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites” (v.13).

 

But the angel didn’t bother to explain why it was happening. He just told Gideon what to do next and said: “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?” (v.14)

 

“And he [Gideon] said unto him, ‘Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.’ And the Lord said unto him, ‘Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man’” (vv.15-16).

 

Judges 8:10 tells us that the enemy had 135,000 fighting men! (Judg. 8:10). Gideon only had 32,000.

“The Lord said unto Gideon, ‘The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, ‘Mine own hand hath saved me.’

 

“Now, therefore, go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from mount Gilead’. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand” (Judg. 7:2-3).

 

So, out of 32,000 men, 22,000 turned back! Now Gideon only had 10,000 to fight the 135,000 enemy soldiers. But God knew something more about those men who remained. Though they may have thought they were ready to fight, God knew better. So the Lord instructed Gideon to give the 10,000 men a simple test.

 

“And the Lord said unto Gideon, ‘The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.’

 

“So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, ‘Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.”

 

“And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.”

 

“And the Lord said unto Gideon, ‘By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place” (vv.4-7). 

 

I never understood the big deal about two different ways of drinking water. But Chris, one of my work friends, explained it to me. If a person goes down to drink water and brings it up to his mouth, he can still be on guard with his eyes looking out for the enemy. But if a person gets down on his knees and slurps the water, his eyes would not look out but down! So out of the 10,000 men, only 300 were truly battle-ready!

 

Gideon may have been apprehensive, to say the least, about going against a multitude of blood-thirsty enemies with such a small number of men, but God knew what He was doing. So Gideon trusted and obeyed, and he saved the whole nation of Israel.

 

“Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon” (Judg. 8:28).

 

With God, it’s never about the numbers; it’s about a person’s heart. So we have to get used to doing spiritual things without always having to know why. And if we sometimes feel we are less than able, remember this story of Gideon. It’s not about the big numbers; it’s about each of us doing our small part to stay alert, trust, and obey. That’s how the world becomes a better place. Because of that young man’s heart and willingness to trust and obey, the whole nation of Israel had true peace in the land for 40 years.

 

We’re looking forward to at least that many and more.  

Love, Carolyn

 

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INSPIRATION FOR ENDURANCE

INSPIRATION FOR ENDURANCE

I met John in a writers’ group, and we often came a little early and talked. He told me that he used to be a script writer for the television show Quantum Leap, but when the show stopped, he moved to Vegas. John shared that he grew up in a Christian family but didn’t believe in God anymore. I’m sure you’ve known people like this too. People start as Bible-believing children but come dangerously close to wanting to give up on the Bible later in life.

 

Traumatic events take place, and God gets blamed. We’re born again and think things should be going better for us. But sometimes, they don’t go well at all. The truth is faithfulness isn’t something for the weak-hearted. It takes some real inner strength to stay faithful, and our faithfulness gets tested over and over throughout our lives. Faithfulness isn’t that easy sometimes, but is it worth it? For sure!

 

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that God rewards faith: “He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

 

In the big picture of things, our lives are short here on earth compared to our eternity. “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more” (Ps. 103:15).

 

Though life may seem unbearable at times, God promises that “there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

 

In Old Testament terms, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5). You say, “That’s the longest night ever!” But God does promise joy in the morning. The word “morning” doesn’t mean “the very next morning,” like we would tend to interpret it. Instead, it means “the breaking of light through the darkness.” It’s the “daybreak” when the sun brightens the morning sky. Metaphorically, the more light, the less night. And God “is not a man that he should lie” (Num. 23:19).

 

In New Testament terms, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). I looked up the word “affliction” in the Greek. It is a thronging, crowding pressure. It’s narrow, burdened with anguish, persecution, and trouble. It comes from a root word meaning a rut or worn track. And isn’t that how the attacks come sometimes? We get in a rut of affliction, the same things over and over just beating us down.

 

When the Bible says “light affliction,” it doesn’t mean it’s no big deal. The word “light” has two meanings in Greek. The older meaning is just the opposite of what we think. We think light is mild, but in the older Greek meaning, it is the opposite. It means that the affliction is more like a hurricane! It means to be pushed like a torrential wind pushes, and we’ve all seen videos of the effects of a storm on the eastern shores of Florida and other states, where the palm trees bend nearly to the ground. This word also has the image of being like oars pushing in the water, cutting and forcing the water repeatedly, and not stopping in rhythm or force. The older meaning of this word also indicates how demonic powers push on us so hard we feel so weak we can hardly bear it.

 

This verse is telling us that the Lord understands our afflictions. Jesus was afflicted in the same ways we are today.

 

But the second meaning of the word “light” in this verse tells us that even though these afflictions are at times like hurricanes, we can survive if we apply God’s truths to our minds. The afflictions we bear now are minimal, compared to the honor, praise, glory, and joy we will have for eternity.

 

The following is how Second Corinthians 4:17 is translated In the Amplified Version: “For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!”

 

Go back and read that verse slowly and let it sink in!

 

God shows us how to endure the hard times in this life. Read the Bible and see the many examples of men, women, and children who confronted adversity and came out on the other side. A great place to start is with the ordinary heroes found in Hebrew 12.

 

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12: 1-2).

 

My friend John from the writers’ group ran into some problems with his air conditioning one summer, and in a Vegas summer when it’s up around 112 degrees in the daytime and maybe 80-something at night, no air conditioning is a horrible thing! At the same time, he ran into a problem with his taxes. When he told me these things, I told him we would pray for him. Before the next meeting, he called me to thank me for the prayers. Miracles had taken place to get both problems fixed easily and quickly. I told him God was real, and the Lord answered the prayers. At the next meeting, He confessed to me that he thought he just might be a believer. Unfortunately, he passed away soon after that, but I believe that he got back with the Lord before he died.

 

Don’t give up on the Lord. Instead, hang in there and try to help others hang in there too. Faith is a commitment; we will always have the Lord’s help if we ask.

 

We do always have Jesus’ help available! Let’s use it. “Help me. Help me. Help me!” He will. So let’s do our best to stay faithful and help others to do the same.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

Lots of great true-life stories – THE BIBLE APPLIES TO THE ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY DAY

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SELF-RESPECT

SELF-RESPECT

Thirty-three years ago, I decided to teach myself to paint. One of my ideas was to cut out photos from newspapers and magazines, then try to paint them. I chose black and white ones for my first attempt. Then, I learned that raw umber and ultramarine blue made a nice black, so I mixed up some and started. The first picture that inspired me was the face of a young Black American girl. She was financially poor. But in one way, she was wealthy, and it showed on her face. The photo captured my attention and my heart.

There was dignity in her expression and self-respect, and I wanted to portray her deep inner strength. She held her head high as her face expressed drive and courage. When I saw the photo, I thought, “No matter what her circumstances are, she believes in her worth, and that’s what I want to paint.”

I have the finished painting hanging in the living room, across from where I sit.  The emotional impact continues to inspire me. This girl may not have had money or things, but she had dignity and pride in who she was. In my teenage years, I’d lost that and let people treat me badly because I didn’t think I deserved to be treated well.  But when I started to study God’s Word, my self-worth was re-ignited.  

 

I think God sees us much like I see the painting of the girl’s face. He’s proud of us. He sees right past any of our outward frailties or inward shortcomings. He smiles when we believe in ourselves and hold our heads high. We are His kids. We have a right to dignity, and we have the courage to believe and walk out on His Word step by step into our futures. We learn a lot by just doing—finding out what works and what doesn’t work for us. Maybe not immediately, but eventually, we learn to recognize how He works in our lives, and we truly learn to trust Him and His Word.

Psalm 139:14 is a great verse to tell ourselves if we’re ever feeling bad about ourselves: “I will give thanks and praise to You [God], for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.”

 

God says we’re fearfully (awesomely, respectfully) made. God took time thinking about us even before we were born: what we would look like (what color eyes, the color of our skin, would we have freckles or not, all that physical stuff.) He carefully planned where we’d be born, what kind of cultural environment we’d be in, what our voices would sound like, and what we would enjoy. He thought about all that in great detail and made each person unique. Then He said, “Wonderful!” We may not always agree with Him, but we need to!

 

Zechariah 2:8 tells us we are the apple of God’s eye and warns those who go up against us. “For thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘After glory, He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye.’”(NASB).

 

I like how The Living Bible translates this: “The Lord of Glory has sent me against the nations that oppressed you, for he who harms you sticks his finger in Jehovah’s eye!”

 

This verse specifically talks about nations who plunder God’s people, but Satan also uses demons to get people to plunder themselves by self-mutilation of one form or another. Even speaking badly about ourselves can be a form of mutilation of the mind, heart, and spirit.

 

Since God says we were awesomely, respectfully, and thoughtfully made, we need to respect ourselves for what God created! Let’s not stick a finger in His eye! Instead, the next time we look into the mirror let’s say to that person, “You, yes YOU, are wonderfully made by God, and you are the apple of His eye. Respect yourself!”

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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