A Life Of Great Promise

I received this as an email forward and thought it was worth putting here to remind myself of how God sometimes works.

Psalm 105:17-19 *

[God] sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. Theyafflicted his feet with fetters; he himself was laid in irons, until thetime that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.* NAS

The life of Joseph began with great promise. Earlier in his youth, the Lordgave him a dream that showed him that he would be elevated to a position ofgreat authority. He would rule over his brothers. Even his father and motherwould come bowing down before him. What happened next? The very opposite ofwhat God had promised. His brothers betrayed him, sold him as a slave into Egypt, and, because he was faithful to his Egyptian master, he eventually ended up in prison. He was in fetters, his soul was in iron.

How did Joseph respond to that situation? Did he say to himself,“Everything’s gone wrong! The Lord’s promise will never come true”? No, Idon’t believe that. It says, “Until the time that the promise came, the wordof the Lord tested him.” How important it is to see that when the Lord givesus a promise, many times everything that happens next will seem to be thevery opposite of what God has promised. It’s so important that at times like that we don’t give up on the promise, we don’t say, “God has forgotten; God has failed.”

You see, that promise that God gave us is testing us. It’s testing our faithand our constancy to see if we’ll hold on in the darkest hour. And when we pass the test, then, like Joseph, the promise will be fulfilled. - DerekPrince

Noticing

I'm noticing as I go through my days and listening, I'm now more aware that many messages (secular and Christian) tell me that faulty belief systems hinder us from living in freedom. I've heard this message over and over, and it never really sank in until recently.

What is a lie? It's the opposite of the truth.

What is the truth? One could say that we each have our own truths. Perhaps that may be so. What if one's person's truth is that all women are worthless? Is that true? Afterall, it's what that person's truth is.

The truth that I base is true truth is God's Truth, which is found in the Bible. I've never found it to be untrue. When I have gone contrary to what the Bible says, in the end, it's never turned out well, and there is not peace.

So, with everything that tells me something about my identity, I must weigh whether it is truth or not, and that would be according to God's Truth. If I don't know what the Bible says or cannot interpret it, then how will I know? I am thankful for many people who love the Word of God so as to help me. I've been learning a lot about my identify in Christ and realize there are many things I believed about myself that were untrue.

That's left me stuck, living a downward spiral in so many things. However, right now, my belief system is being turned upside down -- the past 3 yrs -- because the domino of lies are coming down. Praise be to God.

They can only come down if you're willing to go to the pain, address the lies where God takes the scales off one's eyes. You have to be willing to do this, otherwise you will continue to live in those lies.

I wonder how many people read similar things over and over and the scales are not off their eyes and they just don't understand. It's happened to me and very humbling to realize this. In desperation, I cried out to God to get these lies off my life.

Spring cleaning the lies out of my life -- not a pretty sight, but, in the end, it will be so beautiful.

God Is Always Trustworthy

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths."

God's ways are not our ways.

In John 8:32, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

These verses are totally striking at my heart in a very deep way. I wasn't even sure that it was in the Bible where it says "the truth will set you free", so I decided to look it up this morning and found it. Yay God!!! It's not a cliche.

God can't lie period. He just can't. If I believe that what He has in the Bible is true, then what is written there is true. God is not mocked. Whatever we sow, we reap. What are things we sow? All sorts of fears? Laziness? Sexual Immorality? White lies? Angry words? Frustrations? The list goes on infinitely.

What does it mean that "the truth will set you free"? As I've already begun addressing lies in previous entries and in other blogs I write in, lies are the opposite of God's Truth. When we are in bondage to those lies, slaves to them, we are not free to live God's Truth in our lives.

When we have God's Truth attack those lies and destroy them in our lives, only then can we be set free from sin's grip. There are so many things of the Bible that I've read over and over again, yet, I was blind to what it actually meant. What that means is I didn't understand how to translate that into actions.

What does it mean to be set free in God's Truth, to not be in bondage to sin?

What do you need to do?

1. Be aware of your responses to things & the emotions that come up whenever.

Example: I was talking to a friend about a family at my church and became incredibly emotional, crying, while talking about this family. This family didn't do anything to me. In fact, I have a great relationship with the whole family. As I relayed an incident about someone commenting on this couple's 2 oldest kids, just that incident had me angry & very upset that even now as I think about it, I'm feeling somewhat upset.

2. With #1, keep a small notebook or journal of these things and what are things that triggered that emotion or response. Doesn't have to make sense at all, just write it down.

3. Take one of those items from #2, pray and ask God why those emotions came up. What is the lie? When did it originate? Memories may come back up to a specific place & time. The memory is actually what you perceived at the time of the memory, and not even be something that actually was correct. Your perception may have been skewed at the time, but it did form your belief system.

4. Ask God to show you what lies you believed about that memory.

5. Take responsibility that you received those lies into your life at that point from back in the memory.

6. Ask God to bring His Truth into that memory. Listen. He may give more images, words, sounds, smells, sensing, etc.

7. Ask God to bring His Healing into that situation.

8. Thank God.

See, when we replace faulty belief systems -- the lies -- with God's Truth, it DOES bring freedom.

One of the areas that many people are challenged with are performance issues. If I do these things or do not do these things, God will love me more. The fact is, God loves you as much as He can love you. No one could love you more than God loves you. His love for you is NOT based upon anything you do, think or feel. God's love for us is infinite.

Imagine if you were no longer concerned abour performing for God what freedom that would bring. You wouldn't have the fear that plagues you, because you would know that you could never disappoint God. He completely & fully accepts you -- yes, even your sinful nature, which if you're a Christian, the blood of Jesus Christ covers your sins. If you're not a Christian, than that is a different story.

What would you do if fear didn't hold you back from things? Freedom, don't you think?

Awareness of Our Emotions

I'm learning to be more aware of my thoughts & emotions, especially the negative ones. Rather than tell myself I can't grieve or feel bad about myself, to allow myself to go through the pain, paying attention to whatever God is telling me.

Often we think pain is bad. What I'm realizing is it's God letting me know there are things in my life that need dealing with. In many instances, they are lies I've believed and lived, although, not usually realizing what these are.

Our lives manifest our belief system, which is not based upon logic, rather our emotional experiences of how we perceived something. Our perceptions can be right on the money or they can have perceived a situation incorrectly. It doesn't matter, as it's our perceptions and the emotions tied to them that form our belief systems.

God has been bringing all sorts of things up with me. It's a good thing. Painful, but good. I'm learning to just let go and allow God to work.

Theophostic Procedure (Basics)

This is something I got in a session I had with a friend. My friend got training in theophostic prayer and gave me this.

1. Pray -- Ask the Lord to give the person the grace & courage to feel what he needs to feel and look at what he needs to see.

2. Have him share his presenting story & focus on the emotions.

3. Ask him to allow his mind to connect him to any memory relateed to the emotion. (Do not rush them -- silence here is good). Question: Are you willing to lay aside the present situation and see if there are any earlier places where you felt this same emotion?

4. Once in the memory, have them identify what they are feeling.

5. Ask him to identify why he feels (this will be the belief) what he feels in the memory of what you're believing.

6. Work through any "conclusions" (I could never please her) to find the lie (I am worthless). Lies are almost always statements about identity.

7. Restate the lie out loud. Ask "how true does this lie feel to you from 1 to 10?"

8. Ask them if they would like to hear from the Lord regarding the lie.

9. Summarize what they hear from the Lord.

10. Revisit the memory & see if there is still negative emotion in the memory.

11. If no, thank God for HIs Truth & healing.

12. If yes, there is most likely another lie which needs to be visited and worked through. Or it could be a truth-based emotion like disappointment, sadness, regret.

13. If a truth-based emotion, ask if there's any resistance to allowing the Lord to carry it.

14. End the session by acknowledging the presence and work of Christ.