Happy Resurrection Day 1 Kings 18

The Contest on Mount Carmel
1 Later on, in the third year of the drought, the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain!” 2 So Elijah went to appear before Ahab.
Meanwhile, the famine had become very severe in Samaria. 3 So Ahab summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Obadiah was a devoted follower of the Lord. 4 Once when Jezebel had tried to kill all the Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had hidden 100 of them in two caves. He put fifty prophets in each cave and supplied them with food and water.) 5 Ahab said to Obadiah, “We must check every spring and valley in the land to see if we can find enough grass to save at least some of my horses and mules.” 6 So they divided the land between them. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.

7 As Obadiah was walking along, he suddenly saw Elijah coming toward him. Obadiah recognized him at once and bowed low to the ground before him. “Is it really you, my lord Elijah?” he asked.

8 “Yes, it is,” Elijah replied. “Now go and tell your master, ‘Elijah is here.’”

9 “Oh, sir,” Obadiah protested, “what harm have I done to you that you are sending me to my death at the hands of Ahab? 10 For I swear by the Lord your God that the king has searched every nation and kingdom on earth from end to end to find you. And each time he was told, ‘Elijah isn’t here,’ King Ahab forced the king of that nation to swear to the truth of his claim. 11 And now you say, ‘Go and tell your master, “Elijah is here.”’ 12 But as soon as I leave you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you away to who knows where. When Ahab comes and cannot find you, he will kill me. Yet I have been a true servant of the Lord all my life. 13 Has no one told you, my lord, about the time when Jezebel was trying to kill the Lord’s prophets? I hid 100 of them in two caves and supplied them with food and water. 14 And now you say, ‘Go and tell your master, “Elijah is here.”’ Sir, if I do that, Ahab will certainly kill me.”

15 But Elijah said, “I swear by the Lord Almighty, in whose presence I stand, that I will present myself to Ahab this very day.”

16 So Obadiah went to tell Ahab that Elijah had come, and Ahab went out to meet Elijah. 17 When Ahab saw him, he exclaimed, “So, is it really you, you troublemaker of Israel?”

18 “I have made no trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “You and your family are the troublemakers, for you have refused to obey the commands of the Lord and have worshiped the images of Baal instead. 19 Now summon all Israel to join me at Mount Carmel, along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who are supported by Jezebel.”

20 So Ahab summoned all the people of Israel and the prophets to Mount Carmel. 21 Then Elijah stood in front of them and said, “How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!” But the people were completely silent.

22 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only prophet of the Lord who is left, but Baal has 450 prophets. 23 Now bring two bulls. The prophets of Baal may choose whichever one they wish and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood of their altar, but without setting fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood on the altar, but not set fire to it. 24 Then call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by setting fire to the wood is the true God!” And all the people agreed.

25 Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “You go first, for there are many of you. Choose one of the bulls, and prepare it and call on the name of your god. But do not set fire to the wood.”

26 So they prepared one of the bulls and placed it on the altar. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the altar they had made.

27 About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”

28 So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. 29 They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response.

30 Then Elijah called to the people, “Come over here!” They all crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. 31 He took twelve stones, one to represent each of the tribes of Israel, 32 and he used the stones to rebuild the altar in the name of the Lord. Then he dug a trench around the altar large enough to hold about three gallons. 33 He piled wood on the altar, cut the bull into pieces, and laid the pieces on the wood.

Then he said, “Fill four large jars with water, and pour the water over the offering and the wood.”

34 After they had done this, he said, “Do the same thing again!” And when they were finished, he said, “Now do it a third time!” So they did as he said, 35 and the water ran around the altar and even filled the trench.

36 At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. 37 O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”

38 Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench! 39 And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out, “The Lord—he is God! Yes, the Lord is God!”

40 Then Elijah commanded, “Seize all the prophets of Baal. Don’t let a single one escape!” So the people seized them all, and Elijah took them down to the Kishon Valley and killed them there.

Elijah Prays for Rain
41 Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!”
42 So Ahab went to eat and drink. But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and bowed low to the ground and prayed with his face between his knees.

43 Then he said to his servant, “Go and look out toward the sea.”

The servant went and looked, then returned to Elijah and said, “I didn’t see anything.”

Seven times Elijah told him to go and look. 44 Finally the seventh time, his servant told him, “I saw a little cloud about the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea.”

Then Elijah shouted, “Hurry to Ahab and tell him, ‘Climb into your chariot and go back home. If you don’t hurry, the rain will stop you!’”

45 And soon the sky was black with clouds. A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel. 46 Then the Lord gave special strength to Elijah. He tucked his cloak into his belt and ran ahead of Ahab’s chariot all the way to the entrance of Jezreel

Studyin' W/ Lena Deut 32

Receive what I have to say. Don’t reject it, or weigh it out to see whether I (God) am right or wrong, correct or incorrect, or if it can be done by you or fit into your lifestyle, most likely it can’t. Every time I speak I’m calling you to live a new life a new way, to reprioritize. If you can’t or won’t I’ll know you don’t want what I’ve said. Am I God to you? Am I great? Am I the one and only? Am I holy? Am I Magnificent? Is that how you live and adjust? Because you know this and believe this and live and act as though I Am who I’ve said I Am to you? It shows in everything you will or won’t do. I’m trying over and over to use your actions and decisions to show you what your priorities really are and how they can change and be changed in My greatness.
Who does your life belong to? It is showing up also. Many really think that they were given this life as a personal gift to do with it whatever they can, to enjoy it and find themselves, and have some sort of natural peace and prosperity and to make some kind of a name for themselves here. All of that may cause one to miss the point of why they were created. We were created as instruments. Tools to a fallen unredeemed world, who so desperately need to be saved from a self centered life, also the consequences of wrong choices and that will show up having a dire eternal effect.
The Lord is so gracious to give us His word, whatever the cost to humans who choose to carry it for Him. He is trying to show us in the reading and preaching and teaching of His word, then people say they don’t have time to read or hear it as though it was a story book or educational option. Then those who read it have had blinders on and wonder what it is saying and who it might be talking to, they exempt themselves believing it is some fascinating story and not one that is personally about them. The blinders tell them that they know a few people this could apply to, but for them they’ve been excused. It’s Not really telling me to go to church instead of work extra, and to not serve myself, or my own desires first. It isn’t really saying stop having that hobby that takes the place of God in our lives and lay it completely down, maybe even selling all the stuff that so easily excuses us as it takes away our time, and make a decision to go after studies that want get us a job anywhere, except working for God for free! It’s absurd that you’d see anything like that in the reading or studying of the word. That’s probably NOT what it is saying, right?
I mean, do you expect us to change our whole lives and act like God is really our Father and tells us what to do in the Bible? To believe wherever we live is because He put us there, like as missionaries? Don’t we have to change jobs and go to seminary or something first to be a missionary, and don’t missionaries go off to a strange place and get supported by other people, rather than working their normal job and spending time personally studying, worshiping, and preaching, instead of all of the other things our society is telling us we need to or should do?
Hold on a minute, am I not my own person? I’m not like, someone else’s slave am I? Are you trying to elude to the Idea that I should consider myself a slave to God and to the establishing of His invisible kingdom on earth, while I live here, and all the days of my own life here could and should be spent doing what He wants and thinks I should do, instead of me being a free individual? I mean God gave us a freewill didn’t He, and He freed us from slavery, didn’t He, and we don’t really have to do what anyone else tells us to, right?
Right, you don’t HAVE to!
You are free to do whatever you want to do.
You don’t have to do anything anyone else’s way, ever.
You have that right and exercise it with insistence, regularly.
You can even choose to go to hell if you want to.
You can choose to serve yourself, if you really want to.
Live as to make a name for yourself.
Get famous. Be self fulfilled and proud.
Be a good person, your way.
Make as much money as possible and miss the boat with God’s plan, if that’s what you choose or want to do.
You can even say you love God with words and come to His house as much as you want, and go about your business being good, if you want to, because you don’t have to follow anyone but yourself.
The thing is, do not say I did not tell you there is a better overall eternal way to live now. When you stand before God accountable for your life now, don’t use the excuse you didn’t understand then or didn’t know or hear about this choosing righteously thing.
A Christian is crucified with Christ and now lives a different life than they had ever planned to live before. The life they now live is a life of faith, not based on what part you can contribute because of your gifts or talents etc. But based on faith in how great He is in you and what He can do to show Himself strong and glorious through you.
He is jealous of your choices for others other than Him. He’s jealous that you choose your ways, rather than His ways. You make your own decisions, you want to be left alone. God did not make man to be alone. Curses will come, for persons who decide for themselves come against God and open doors to enemies to have and take place. There is no such thing as choosing other than God without consequence. The consequence is grace as long as one lives, to direct one back to God. One who wants to be left alone will be. Humans (sheep) don’t seem to really eternally really know what they want. He who created us knows all about us. He knows what he put inside of us to want.
So you want to control your own, life destiny and course? Can you really? This is a good question to ask. Who created the heavens and the earth, you? Who made man, you? It is amazing thought, that the creation could ever think to tell the Creator what to do, or where to go, or to serve or bless me. He laid out the conditions, boundaries, rules. We, the creation, follow them and in that are blessed. If we reject them, we are cursed. We either opt in for blessing or opt in for cursing. No way to play with God Master Creator and His Divine plan. It is deception for the evil enemy of God that would ever have creation believe any other way. That is worse than Russian Roulette.
Do you not understand the ways of the Lord? One’s who choose others do not understand. It is time to get it, let it register, who we are and who He is! Now is the time for revelation as never before. With all that you possibly can, get the understanding. Understanding comes by acting out obedience in faith. You cannot reason it out, weigh it out first, we were created to believe Him and then see Him as He is.
I have watched people over and over these past 28 years in the LORD, come in and go out of His presence, choosing their own way. I’ve watched the consequences of their choices overtake them and leave them destitute over and over again. The destitution is crying out to their very eternal spirits, “Come Home to Me” says the Lord, “Come decide to walk in My ways! Are you yet ready to forsake others and cleave wholeheartedly unto Me and to My ways?”
I hear destitution saying within them, “Please, Please, let’s go Home now, to Our eternal Father, please…..can we please choose that now, we’ve chosen others for so long, seeing none of it works, we know what works…please….”
Again He says, “Where is the liar to help you down in the pit? Is he who told you, you are better alone, paying for al your medical bills yourself or is he there keeping you company when no one wants to come around, when you have no one at all and are friendless, or without any fellowship?
Then I’ve watched their consideration of the paths set before them and I’ve seen enemies whisper lies in their ears over again, “See, I told you, you don’t HAVE to be told what to do, you don’t HAVE to go home, You are better at ruling your own life….”
And so we pray again, till they decide…
Obedience is the only way home.
Take to heart all the words of warning I have given you today. Pass them on as a command to your children so they will obey every word of these instructions. These instructions are not empty words—they are your life! By obeying them you will enjoy a long life in the land you will occupy when you cross the Jordan River.”
1st stop - The Jordan River, River of humility, the annihilator of the enemies of God called pride, arrogance, independence, insistence, rebellion, etc.

Deut 32 Today

1 “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak!
Hear, O earth, the words that I say!
2 Let my teaching fall on you like rain;
let my speech settle like dew.
Let my words fall like rain on tender grass,
like gentle showers on young plants.
3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
how glorious is our God!
4 He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect.
Everything he does is just and fair.
He is a faithful God who does no wrong;
how just and upright he is!

5 “But they have acted corruptly toward him;
when they act so perversely,
are they really his children?
They are a deceitful and twisted generation.
6 Is this the way you repay the Lord,
you foolish and senseless people?
Isn’t he your Father who created you?
Has he not made you and established you?
7 Remember the days of long ago;
think about the generations past.
Ask your father, and he will inform you.
Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High assigned lands to the nations,
when he divided up the human race,
he established the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number in his heavenly court.

9 “For the people of Israel belong to the Lord;
Jacob is his special possession.
10 He found them in a desert land,
in an empty, howling wasteland.
He surrounded them and watched over them;
he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.
11 Like an eagle that rouses her chicks
and hovers over her young,
so he spread his wings to take them up
and carried them safely on his pinions.
12 The Lord alone guided them;
they followed no foreign gods.
13 He let them ride over the highlands
and feast on the crops of the fields.
He nourished them with honey from the rock
and olive oil from the stony ground.
14 He fed them yogurt from the herd
and milk from the flock,
together with the fat of lambs.
He gave them choice rams from Bashan, and goats,
together with the choicest wheat.
You drank the finest wine,
made from the juice of grapes.

15 “But Israel soon became fat and unruly;
the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed!
Then they abandoned the God who had made them;
they made light of the Rock of their salvation.
16 They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods;
they provoked his fury with detestable deeds.
17 They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God,
to gods they had not known before,
to new gods only recently arrived,
to gods their ancestors had never feared.
18 You neglected the Rock who had fathered you;
you forgot the God who had given you birth.

19 “The Lord saw this and drew back,
provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.
20 He said, ‘I will abandon them;
then see what becomes of them.
For they are a twisted generation,
children without integrity.
21 They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God;
they have provoked my anger with their useless idols.
Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people;
I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.
22 For my anger blazes forth like fire
and burns to the depths of the grave.
It devours the earth and all its crops
and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap disasters upon them
and shoot them down with my arrows.
24 I will weaken them with famine,
burning fever, and deadly disease.
I will send the fangs of wild beasts
and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust.
25 Outside, the sword will bring death,
and inside, terror will strike
both young men and young women,
both infants and the aged.
26 I would have annihilated them,
wiping out even the memory of them.
27 But I feared the taunt of Israel’s enemy,
who might misunderstand and say,
“Our own power has triumphed!
The Lord had nothing to do with this!”’

28 “But Israel is a senseless nation;
the people are foolish, without understanding.
29 Oh, that they were wise and could understand this!
Oh, that they might know their fate!
30 How could one person chase a thousand of them,
and two people put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the Lord had given them up?
31 But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock,
as even they recognize.
32 Their vine grows from the vine of Sodom,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poison,
and their clusters are bitter.
33 Their wine is the venom of serpents,
the deadly poison of cobras.

34 “The Lord says, ‘Am I not storing up these things,
sealing them away in my treasury?
35 I will take revenge; I will pay them back.
In due time their feet will slip.
Their day of disaster will arrive,
and their destiny will overtake them.’

36 “Indeed, the Lord will give justice to his people,
and he will change his mind about his servants,
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
37 Then he will ask, ‘Where are their gods,
the rocks they fled to for refuge?
38 Where now are those gods,
who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their offerings?
Let those gods arise and help you!
Let them provide you with shelter!
39 Look now; I myself am he!
There is no other god but me!
I am the one who kills and gives life;
I am the one who wounds and heals;
no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!
40 Now I raise my hand to heaven
and declare, “As surely as I live,
41 when I sharpen my flashing sword
and begin to carry out justice,
I will take revenge on my enemies
and repay those who reject me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword will devour flesh—
the blood of the slaughtered and the captives,
and the heads of the enemy leaders.”’

43 “Rejoice with him, you heavens,
and let all of God’s angels worship him.
Rejoice with his people, you nations,
and let all the angels be strengthened in him.
For he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take revenge against his enemies.
He will repay those who hate him
and cleanse the land for his people.”

44 So Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song to the people.

45 When Moses had finished reciting all these words to the people of Israel, 46 he added: “Take to heart all the words of warning I have given you today. Pass them on as a command to your children so they will obey every word of these instructions. 47 These instructions are not empty words—they are your life! By obeying them you will enjoy a long life in the land you will occupy when you cross the Jordan River.”

Moses’ Death Foretold
48 That same day the Lord said to Moses, 49 “Go to Moab, to the mountains east of the river, and climb Mount Nebo, which is across from Jericho. Look out across the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the people of Israel as their own special possession. 50 Then you will die there on the mountain. You will join your ancestors, just as Aaron, your brother, died on Mount Hor and joined his ancestors. 51 For both of you betrayed me with the Israelites at the waters of Meribah at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. You failed to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel there. 52 So you will see the land from a distance, but you may not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”

STUDYin' w/ Lena Today, Deut 28

Blessings – a life or even parts of that life, that are void of cursing.
Cursing – a life or even parts of that life, that are void of blessing.
Of course, we know if we bless the Lord He blesses us, if we do not bless Him, simply by being compliant to His will, we become cursed.
Curses causeless do not come, and for one to see a curse, is the grace of God to lead one towards change which is always possible through the One who has ultimately blessed God, by bringing the possibilities and offers of curse reversal for man. Through believing in and receiving, and walking out obedience to God once again through Jesus Christ, curses and their power over man can be reversed. Blessings can be enacted once again, on man’s behalf.
It is tragic for pride to rise up and block one’s recognition of a curse set out to destroy life, for this is the purpose of a curse. One either humbly receives grace and forgiveness to change or stand in immoveable pride in which destruction will surely come.
So blessings and curses are gages in this life’s walk of faith. They steer us onto or keep us going on the proper pathway or help us know to swiftly and abruptly change pathways.
How does one know one is walking correctly or that they need redirecting?
Blessing or curse.
How does one know they have a cold, need a loan, should get a job, etc.? They look at symptoms as indicators of what is and what could or should be. These are gages set up by God in His word for us to know that we can either continue or repent of where we’ve been or where we need to head.
Blessings and curses do not ever effect only one person and his own generation. Every sin must be made to come face to face with Jesus and decide whether or not to come under His blood or try to redeem it’s self or not.
Sin undealt-with brings curses, even that of your parents or grand or great grandparents. Dealt with sin brings a blessing that is also perpetuated through generations. Everything we do or do not choose to do in life, perpetuates a blessing or a curse to many generations.
One may ask, what if I have no children? Let’s think of “children” as one’s under our sphere of influence. Are you at all a part of a family? Do you go to a church? What about school, a job,or serve in the community? Have you ever led anyone to the Lordship of Christ? These areas all contain “children” in which, if touched by our lives, are our responsibility to bless or without blessing, we curse.
God made each and every human to be a model, to be a copy, to copy and be copied. This is how we learn best, just do what I do, just do what they do, just copy.
One day I was looking at what my child was doing and I heard the Holy Spirit coach me and say,” that is you, the natural you, the flesh natured man, alive in your child, and I did not call you to reproduce that in your kids, I called you to reproduce Me in demonstration in your kids.”
Obviously I’d not been modeling that part of Christ to them. I heard Him clearly say in my spirit man, “Thou shalt not make for thyself any image after thine own kind, though shalt have no graven (carved, formed) images that look like natural flesh natured man!”
UGH, yes Sir!
Boy did that commandment hit me good that day. I realized I am a steward of lives. I stand as a carbon copy, either of Him, because I make sure that happens, or of maybe my father or mother or grandparent or even husband, boss, etc.
We were created and set here by God to look at and learn of Him, be face to face with Him in His word, that we may have enough exposure and relational fellowship with His spirit that we may copy Him and then in turn through influence, reproduce Him. That just happens, we’re reproducers, period. We don’t have to try, reproduction in this form, just happens! Just happens, without trying. Those closest to us reproduce the most of us. What are they seeing in us? Life or death, blessing or cursing?
This is where my e-mail address was changed to express the commandment each day in my reminder eyes – we are his image and light…..
So who’s image are we portraying today? To whom? Why or why not?
Choice.
Freewill choice.
We live how we want to. We do what we want to, we change as much as we want to!
Lord, help us see the curses allowed to take over parts of our lives today and change our want to’s, our priorities and our decisive actions, In Jesus’ name!
So is everything you set your hand to blessed, are all of your children blessed and is your work blessed, is your neighborhood blessed and your money and belongings? If not we must ask why not and be humbly willing to follow the way of change.
Curses causeless do not come!
#1 cause of curses – willful disobedience, where you won’t door put off doing what God has asked each of us to do. It is both active and passive.
#2 cause of a curse – Unforgiveness. We forgive because God said to, period. It is an obedient action and decision with full faith in the sacrifice of Jesus for us, the One who forgave our sins. It is reciprocation to that Holy Act. If we don’t forgive, neither will we be forgiven and the tormentors will come and torment or curse parts of our lives till we do and release others from having to pay us back for whatever it is we feel they owe us. Let them stand before God and pay him, if they wronged us, then be loving and ask for mercy on their souls that they’ll change their minds and hearts and not have to do that!
#3 cause of a curse –emotional traumas. They may have opened a door for evil, mostly through fear which opposes faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God, what is not from faith in God is sin. Fear and faith DO NOT mix within our relationship with God and blessings do not come to the fearful. They are trying to chart their own destiny. Trust restoration is a big issue.
I want to add a side note here- a person may hurt us in body or soul, but there is One who can destroy the eternal spirit man. That is the death no one should ever die. God have mercy. Natural life and the preservation or justification of it, is Not worth the risk of a spiritual death. Those who will not forgive, will die spiritually, for they will have given up their privilege of being forgiven, meaning they’ll have NO eternal relationship with their Father God forever! That is the worst tragedy-trauma ever. One must come to a place of complete trust of God as Eternal Father. To protect the body or soul in lieu of restoration of fellowship with God as Father is not worth it, ever. The eternal relationship must remain in tact, even if the body and soul perish. Self preservation comes in direct opposition to this right relationship.
#4 cause of cursings is : inner vows and judgments.
Judging others. (I did not say reading their fruit and making a decision on how you can partake of it or not) we are talking you put an edict of non- faith filled words over them. They’ll never, they don’t eve, oh, I know how they are...
Then inner judgments are usually spoken within the heart. These are doubt filled self preserving word like, “I’ll never do that, I won’t ever be like that, I hate them, etc. The problem with these is they start a whole slew of commotion to cause your power-filled words to come to pass over you. You must be released from these words or thoughts that have led to a chaotic course of action over you, led by evil presences you fed and invited to take over. The point is you stood as god, sat on His thone and decided you own course and destiny. You don’t need to walk by faith in Him, as far as you are concerned you know which direction to turn your own life.
#5 cause of a curse: Curses and words of doubt and unbelief spoken over and in your world. You were created by God to be like God and have every word you speak come to pass! Remember we stand judged by every idle word we speak. Idle words are words that do not contribute to the creation and perpetuation of His kingdom coming to earth. Curses may have been spoken over you by you or by others. Their power must be broken, for God set words up in earth to have power, and they do!
• these 5 open doors are taken in principle from the book by Henry Malone, called “Shadow Boxing” – a Highly recommended reading!
Some symptoms to pay attention to live for change.
Is your work hard, where you never get ahead? Do you never have enough, to make the basics? Are those who could be your fruit, scattered abroad, and nowhere to be found as disciples of the Lordship of Christ? Do you win some and they never grow up, or on the way to winning them to the Lord, they are aborted or miscarried,, never even being born (-again)?
When you go places, do you have mishaps and accidents? Are you always causing confusion or strife somewhere? How about illness, is it chronic, are you on many medications just to cope or maintain some sense of well being or peace? Do people in your family die young or die of the same things over and over again? Have you or your family been or being a part of one disaster after another disaster? Does what you plant spiritually or naturally speaking (investments or even the preaching and sowing of the word) return to you at all, as a harvest, or is there a void there? What you planted never even grew.
How ‘bout enemies, do they have power over you? I did not say do they attack you, of course they’ll try, but do they usually get the upper hand and prevail, leaving you destitute? Or do you end up the victor? Do you work work work and it seems you make less the more you work, or the prices go up or more bills come in or whatever?
Is there something cyclical in your life, it keeps happening, it is on a roll and you can’t seem to stop it from happening?
Are you at peace or mentally tormented day in and day out? Do you know where you are headed in life, or are you just existing? Do you have and pursue vision, either your own, or wholeheartedly serve another man’s, or do you have none? Can you see beyond today, or are you barely getting by?
How about relationships? Are most of them long term and flourishing with you, or do you see a cycle happening in relationships like that hamster’s wheel, you wish they’d be different, but each, in retrospect, seems the same.
Do you work for others, even though you are older, or are you a leader or in charge or lead others yet? Do you see others get what maybe you should have gotten, or feel you worked or served for? Do you feel alone and helpless?
When your kids grow up, do they want to move far away from you and barely have anything to do with you? Do they have to work hard to make it also? Do they break your heart continuously? Are they in constant trouble? Do you wish you could help them, but feel you cannot do anything, or you don’t feel a compassion to help them? Are you helpless where they are concerned? Does someone else get to benefit from how you raised them, rather than your own community where you still live?
Is everything hard for and on you? Are you continually unhappy? Ill? Is your name known and well thought of, or do people have ill will towards you when your name is mentioned? Does what you work for get consumed into nothing worth anything?
Do foreign peoples seem to be taking your life over, where you or your community seem to be becoming their servants? You barely make it, so you borrow from them now, rather than prospering to the point of lending to them.
Is what you thought you lived all your life for now seemingly empty? Is someone else enjoying your children and your grandchildren’s lives and they hardly ever get to visit with you, when they do it is like a guest stopping in to say hello? Are you ok with that distancing? It is more comfortable for you anyway? Have you made such distance in your own relationship with you own family that you actually speak evil of one another and bite and devour one another? What about your spiritual family? How is it with the one who saved you and is anyone able to raise you in the Lord, or have you severed the potential of perpetual healthy relationships there? What about the current church body you are in now, do you have close intimate friends and healthy thriving relationships with willing accountability for your character and thought patterns to be corrected? Do you give to anyone, or just get ministry and help? Are leaders and authorities able to cover you, because you are willingly submissive and obedient or do you rebel and always challenge everything they say or ask of you? Do you bless them or critique them when you get the chance to speak of them to others? Do you bite and devour them or follow them willingly? Do you listen to and obey sheep or shepards more? Do you as a sheep try to lead other sheep?
Are you dry in spirit, soul or body? Embittered? Is there a famine in you and what you receive just vanishes away quickly?
Have you lost compassion for the lost, hurt, and dying? You turn away easily, unless the tragedy or trauma is about you or yours and you don’t have any movement from real concern for others with compassion towards at least prayers. Do you live for self and your own stuff rather than tending to and being hospitable to people? Is stuff more important with you because you can avoid people relationships to take care of stuff? Do you horde for security, which is false? Would you rather work than be at church, thinking you’ll somehow get ahead? Have you lost interest in being around people? Is your life barren of good relationships, yet? Do you find yourself as being selfish?
Are you in physical or mental pain daily? Are the days too long for you, or the nights also? Are you barely here, wishing for death or an end to come soon? Do you feel unloved?
Whom we are slaves to, is who we serve.
We may be in need of release from a curse through recognition, taking responsibility, repenting, renunciation with continued resistance, and conscious decisive steps towards complete restoration of us to God, us to self, and us to others!
Start towards a new walk of freedom and blessing today.
Amen

Deut 28 Today

Blessings for Obedience
“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:
3 Your towns and your fields
will be blessed.
4 Your children and your crops
will be blessed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be blessed.
5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be blessed.
6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be blessed.

7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!

8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.

11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

Curses for Disobedience
15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:
16 Your towns and your fields
will be cursed.
17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be cursed.
18 Your children and your crops
will be cursed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be cursed.
19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be cursed.

20 “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. 21 The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.

25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.

27 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.

30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them. 33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you. 35 The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.

36 “The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.

38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity. 42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.

43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!

45 “If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. 47 If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.

49 “The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death. 52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.

53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children. 55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 56 The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter. 57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.

58 “If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick. 60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief. 61 The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed. 62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.

63 “Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy. 64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you. 68 Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Studyin' Deuteronomy 11 w/ Lena's Journalin' - Annhilation of the enemy of God and our souls- Pride, with decisive humility, on purpose

Don’t ya just love it whenever someone tells you what to do, but they do not demonstrate what they’ve asked as teachers by example? They’ve not yet believed in their own words enough to have adopted them for their own life, they haven’t lived them, and there seems to be no plan to do them.
Don’t you just feel great about and want to chew on and ingest what you feel is fake and phony? God is saying to parents, DON’T be HYPOCRITS! In other words, the power of your words, which are meant to be full of life, will be more highly regarded and respected from others if they are living, breathing, tried, and true, words!***
It will be much more effecting for God’s kingdom.
***Though - Listen now, if one’s heart is all after God, and is a matured son of God, they can both hear and obey any word that is God’s word even through an untried and imperfect vessel, for they know how powerful His words are and how they are true no mater the delivery.
That being so, God is still admonishing the giver on how to more effectively deliver a more life forming word. As natural and spiritual fathers, did you know we are responsible to that? We have a living and an eternal legacy, to pass on effectively. The effectiveness is not dependant so much on God, but on us, our delivery, and witness, and the living proof.
How wiling are we to change, to make that witness more effective? How much of our old ways of established thinking, are we willing to lay down to begin to think like God does? Are we of the heart and mind of a student who desires to learn and are we hungry enough to willingly learn how to obey each command?
The other day I substituted the word “love” for “command”. It was a cool way to read God’s word, as it offered a new understanding of a greater and a deeper love, a love that wants what someone else wants, and will do what someone else wants done, their way. A selfless love.
How will we have all we need to do His will on earth?
Obedience is blessed disobedience is cursed.
If you love, you obey. If you refuse to obey you don’t love, God. No I’m not kidding, look up “love” and “obey” in the NT, you’ll see so clearly how they are the same and how it literally says, “If you do not do what I say you are not Mine and you don’t love Me.”
“God, You know how hard that is. I mean you are not really expecting me to do that with them, right, Lord?”
He is silent on this, for He has already spoken. Ya know what else? He will not strive with us on it at all. He said it and that was enough for He is a “man” of His word. Period!
Turn away? It happens so easily, so subtly. Strong men know this and will not allow it to just happen. They stand and withstand in the evil day and then stand again protecting the faith they know of in Him.
Commit yourself wholeheartedly.
Wear them, teach them, post them, talk about them, continually. Write notes on it, do whatever it takes. Just Do It. Is it that important to you? It is to Him. Excuses just show others how unimportant He is to you.
You do realize we live in a seen realm in this earth, but what is seen is mostly due to what is unseen and what goes on there effects everything about us here? There is warfare for the ruler ship of earth. God sent man specifically to take back and repair its separation from Him problem, namely rebellion, which caused fallenness.
There was a falling that happened before Adam & Eve were placed by God in the earth. The freewill chose “other” instead of God. Choosing “other” in heaven brought a catastrophe that landed on earth (Isa 14, Ez 28, Lk 10:18). Earth was dark and void. God spoke into the darkness, for the whole universe is His Creation, His belonging. Then God set a man and a woman in earth, which belongs to Him, and said, “Here, you two, become One, as I AM One, and in and through that unification, repair, be continual Oneness personified, where two could easily be and stay two, has the right to be two, could be proud of being two, and #1 has the freewill choice to be two (twain, divided, individualized, separated, separate), be and choose to stay One, as I AM One!
Choose life.
Repair and restore, through your rulership of righteous choices of obedient action, completely being connected with My heavenly realm, right here. Bring what I created in heaven here.
You do realize this is what the war is about, right? Rulership, stewardship, Kingship. Right?
Now, in knowing this, seeing this purpose, don’t follow “others”, don’t serve any others, keep your focus on Me, ok?
If you can somehow get this spiritual glimpse, eternal eyesight, you’ll see that in order to properly rule here, we have to be connected as One. For these enemies are mine and are too great for you to fight alone. I need you and you need Me, as long as we stay connected through obedient action under My commands in love, we’ll defeat the catastrophe, we’ll reverse the curse over the whole earth!
The rulers of darkness are stronger than you. Alone you cannot do it, you’ll be defeated everytime, but if we get and stay connected, there will be an engagement of heaven and earth and the power will flow. When the power flows, all that were too great for you alone will be taken out in a wink! That is for you, yes, but it is so for Me, says the Lord.
Ah, the man who’s delight is in the law of the Lord, the deal that makes that connection happen from heaven to earth. Blessed is the man who obeys me enough to let that power flow! Oh My eyes are looking, searching the whole earth for such as these. Men, women, and children engaged and knowing and doing the commands of the Lord, that He would win over His enemies through them!
The obedient man, the obedient woman, the obedient sons, the obedient daughters, the obedient children, oh the places I want them to go ignite and engage the power!
Blessing (Power) or curse (defeat)? We choose this everyday.
Obedience to God or rejection of God? We choose this everyday.
Turning away from God or returning towards God? We choose this everyday.
Cross the Jordan? We choose that option daily also.
Jordan, means, He is so right, I could be so wrong, let’s go His way. I bow to Him, to His will. I am a man who humbles himself.
Pride was the root rebellion of the fall, and is still our enemy today, it comes strongly against obedience. This is why each of us must go to Jordan, because we want to be corrected and put pride’s power under our feet, willingly. There is no crossing over to annihilate any enemies, great or small, without this one being dealt with first. The next step is to stay lowly in heart and mind and action, for you will defeat enemy powers by going through Jordan and into Canaan (lowland), but it you will still be offered pride and a fall there, once again an enemy will offer you pride as a freewill choice. Pride must stay under your feet, because you understand the power and engagement involved in humility.
The next place one must go in Canaan is death of self and a turning wholeheartedly to God’s ways (Gilgal, the cross, the rolling away of reproaches). They must lay their own life down wilingly, for His resurrection power to be made known in the earth!
Lastly one must also be filled with His Holy Spirit and follow His lead, everyday. (Moreh) He is our Divine connection to Jesus and the Father as we walk this journey over overcoming God’s every enemy. He will teach us the pathway of the Lordship of Christ, if we stay humble enough to want to know, listen to, and continue to obey.
To get there, Obey, to stay there, Obey, to walk there, Obey, to overcome there, Obey!
This is as easy as the will or heart allows it to be.
Love obeys. If you won’t obey, you don’t love Me enough yet.

Deuteronomy 11 Today

“You must love the LORD your God and obey all his requirements, decrees, regulations, and commands. 2 Keep in mind that I am not talking now to your children, who have never experienced the discipline of the LORD your God or seen his greatness and his strong hand and powerful arm. 3 They didn’t see the miraculous signs and wonders he performed in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land. 4 They didn’t see what the LORD did to the armies of Egypt and to their horses and chariots—how he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. He destroyed them, and they have not recovered to this very day!
5 “Your children didn’t see how the LORD cared for you in the wilderness until you arrived here. 6 They didn’t see what he did to Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, a descendant of Reuben) when the earth opened its mouth in the Israelite camp and swallowed them, along with their households and tents and every living thing that belonged to them. 7 But you have seen the LORD perform all these mighty deeds with your own eyes!

The Blessings of Obedience
8 “Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter. 9 If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the LORD swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey! 10 For the land you are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you planted your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 Rather, the land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain—12 a land that the LORD your God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the year!
13 “If you carefully obey all the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the LORD your God and serve him with all your heart and soul, 14 then he will send the rains in their proper seasons—the early and late rains—so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil. 15 He will give you lush pastureland for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all you want to eat.
16 “But be careful. Don’t let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the LORD and serve and worship other gods. 17 If you do, the LORD’s anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then you will quickly die in that good land the LORD is giving you.
18 “So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 20 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.
22 “Be careful to obey all these commands I am giving you. Show love to the LORD your God by walking in his ways and holding tightly to him. 23 Then the LORD will drive out all the nations ahead of you, though they are much greater and stronger than you, and you will take over their land. 24 Wherever you set foot, that land will be yours. Your frontiers will stretch from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 25 No one will be able to stand against you, for the LORD your God will cause the people to fear and dread you, as he promised, wherever you go in the whole land.
26 “Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse! 27 You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today. 28 But you will be cursed if you reject the commands of the LORD your God and turn away from him and worship gods you have not known before.
29 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land and helps you take possession of it, you must pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal. 30 (These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley, near the town of Gilgal, not far from the oaks of Moreh.) 31 For you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land the LORD your God is giving you. When you take that land and are living in it, 32 you must be careful to obey all the decrees and regulations I am giving you today.

Studyin' w/ Lena's Journalin' Today to Leviticus 26

Let’s be reminded, God’s blessings are conditional, but His love is without condition. That means He loves us no matter what. No matter who we’ve been, or how we’ve acted, or whether we believe in and receive Him, or not. He loved us and sent His Son to die a horrendous death for us; and He would have done that merciful act, even if none of us ever received the love He extended towards us.
Do not be mixed up in your thoughts, believing that God’s unconditional love is how blessing comes your way, and that because He unconditionally loves us is the reason blessings are cultivated in our lives and generations.
His love and His blessings are NOT the same! If His blessings are withheld from us, it is not because He doesn’t love us and somehow He has chosen others than us to rain His blessing on. We are all chosen to receive His blessings, we just don’t all choose to walk in the ways that open the heavens and rain it down on our lives.
There is an engagement to the blessings of God, it is called covenant relationship and inside of that relationship lies the activation of covenant blessings which is completely due the righteous. That activation is called obedience. Obedience is exercised by faith in the author of the rules of the covenant. That’s relationship, when the relater is able to honor the author by doing what He authored, willingly.
So, If you will, I will.
If you do not, I will not
It will not be well with you or those with you.
In fact, all hell will have seemed to break loose over your life
You decided to walk away
But, I love you, I have loved you.
I told you
Did not leave you alone, without boundaries made clear or without laws to know where you are heading, without instruction to tell you when, where, how, and why.
I Am the answers to all of your questions.
I love the story of Ruth. As I read all of these cursings, I think of it pictured so clearly in Boaz’s commission to Ruth as a field worker. I can see Boaz’s heart cringe as He gives her instruction for safety and blessing’s sake and wonders if she indeed is the type of lady who is wise and will do what she is asked to do, or if she may get hurt, because she feels she’d rather experience it for herself first before she believes in the words of someone else, and walk in whatever way she decides to, without restrictions placed on her life by anyone else’s rules.
Boaz (God) says to Ruth (His bride the Church- that’s us), Hey, if you glean in my field (stay in this church body, rather than moving from place to place, come into the center of the fold, becoming an active member), I’ll literally be able to protect you from those sent by enemies, to devour you. Inside the boundary lines of this specific field, I have set parameters. The enemy knows if he’s allowed here or not allowed here, for what I’ve allowed is allowed, and what I’ve disallowed is disallowed! I know what I allow and disallow here. I don’t know and can’t give an account for what others decided out in the other fields. I’m the overseer here. I hire and fire whoever I want, according to their deeds. If they offend Me or mine they simply don’t work with Me any longer. Only those who have chosen this way can work here, so know you’ll be safe. Plus I watch here, day in and day out. I can’t see what is going on in other fields, they are not a part of My jurisdiction. I must keep My focus here so I can make sure everyone here is safe.
IF you so choose to glean here, I can assure you you’ll be safe, find rest, will have plenty to eat, and more than enough to take home for others to eat.
Now, it is up to you. Do you want to stay here? Or would you rather have variety in your life and go from place, to place, to place, everyday a different field experience? Hey that’s fine, it won’t offend me, it will bring me concern for your soul, but I won’t be able to go off to look for you. I’ll know you choose to go your own way and I’ll have to let you, because I’m assigned to watch here. If I go off to follow every person who chooses not to stay, I’d be leaving my watcher post.
I know they rape ladies in those fields over there. I’ve had some come here to be rescued. I’m just telling you, it happens. If/when it would happen to you, if you decided by your freewill choice to go there, it is NOT MY fault, and it’s NOT because I don’t love you. I do love you, which is why I did forewarn you of the possible dangers of being in other fields. If/when you return, My boundaries still stand, there is still safety here. I’m still here.
If you do not listen to My commands
If you break My covenant
If you disregard My words…
If you refuse to Obey Me
That is your right, option, choice.
Just know what happens to you there, in that wayward place, is not because I do not love you.
I love you and My heart is feeling ill at the thought of your wrong choosing.
I pray you’ll change your mind, before many tormentors have had their party days over you, before the enemy proclaims a victory over you.
The curse was self willed too. You either choose life or death, blessing or curse, there is no in between. None.
WAKE UP. The curses are alarms going off all over the world telling you GO HOME. Go back into the center of the sheepfold, be obedient, submit yourself, love, trust, give of your life in unprideful humility!
Is losing your children not enough to awaken you to follow after truth, and choose life?
I said I would never leave you, and I have not left you. You walked away, you did not choose Me. Don’t ask where I am. You know where I am. I’m right where I was when you choose to walk the way you choose to walk. My regulations will not be softened or change when you decide to return, You’ll have to repent of rejecting My ways in order to again be with Me, but My heart is waiting in such anticipation for that day. The day your enemies’ party is cancelled and your children’s future is secured by your choices.
Come home, My beloved, Come Home! You do have a loving Father, a beautiful Mother and a great older brother, along with a Holy advisor available to you everyday of the rest of your life. If you want to, Come home.

Today's daily Bread Reading - Leviticus 26

Blessings for Obedience
“Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars, or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them. I am the Lord your God. 2 You must keep my Sabbath days of rest and show reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. 5 Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land.

6 “I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land. 7 In fact, you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword.

9 “I will look favorably upon you, making you fertile and multiplying your people. And I will fulfill my covenant with you. 10 You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest! 11 I will live among you, and I will not despise you. 12 I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high.

Punishments for Disobedience
14 “However, if you do not listen to me or obey all these commands, 15 and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands, 16 I will punish you. I will bring sudden terrors upon you—wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them. 17 I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!
18 “And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins. 19 I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze. 20 All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.

21 “If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins. 22 I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.

23 “And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me, 24 then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins. 25 I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies. 26 I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.

27 “If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me, 28 then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. 29 Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30 I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols, and I will despise you. 31 I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me. 32 Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed. 35 As long as the land lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh year while you lived in it.

36 “And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you. 37 Though no one is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies. 38 You will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your enemies. 39 Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies’ lands because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.

40 “But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me. 41 When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins. 42 Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.

44 “But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the Lord their God. 45 For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”

46 These are the decrees, regulations, and instructions that the Lord gave through Moses on Mount Sinai as evidence of the relationship between himself and the Israelites.

Studyin' Exodus 16

3 “If only the LORD had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual.”
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “By evening you will realize it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 7 In the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your complaints, which are against him, not against us. What have we done that you should complain about us?” 8 Then Moses added, “The LORD will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning, for he has heard all your complaints against him. What have we done? Yes, your complaints are against the LORD, not against us.”
9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Announce this to the entire community of Israel: ‘Present yourselves before the LORD, for he has heard your complaining.’” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole community of Israel, they looked out toward the wilderness. There they could see the awesome glory of the LORD in the cloud.
11 Then the LORD said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the Israelites’ complaints. Now tell them, ‘In the evening you will have meat to eat, and in the morning you will have all the bread you want. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’”
13 That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. 14 When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. 15 The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was.
And Moses told them, “It is the food the LORD has given you to eat. 16 These are the LORD’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two quarts for each person in your tent.”
17 So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. 18 But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed.
19 Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.” 20 But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Moses was very angry with them.
21 After this the people gathered the food morning by morning, each family according to its need. And as the sun became hot, the flakes they had not picked up melted and disappeared. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual—four quarts for each person instead of two. Then all the leaders of the community came and asked Moses for an explanation. 23 He told them, “This is what the LORD commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the LORD. So bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow.”
24 So they put some aside until morning, just as Moses had commanded. And in the morning the leftover food was wholesome and good, without maggots or odor. 25 Moses said, “Eat this food today, for today is a Sabbath day dedicated to the LORD. There will be no food on the ground today. 26 You may gather the food for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day.”
27 Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. 28 The LORD asked Moses, “How long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? 29 They must realize that the Sabbath is the LORD’s gift to you. That is why he gives you a two-day supply on the sixth day, so there will be enough for two days. On the Sabbath day you must each stay in your place. Do not go out to pick up food on the seventh day.” 30 So the people did not gather any food on the seventh day.
31 The Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed, and it tasted like honey wafers.
32 Then Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: Fill a two-quart container with manna to preserve it for your descendants. Then later generations will be able to see the food I gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt.”
33 Moses said to Aaron, “Get a jar and fill it with two quarts of manna. Then put it in a sacred place before the LORD to preserve it for all future generations.” 34 Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded Moses. He eventually placed it in the Ark of the Covenant—in front of the stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. 35 So the people of Israel ate manna for forty years until they arrived at the land where they would settle. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
36 The container used to measure the manna was an omer, which was one tenth of an ephah; it held about two quarts.
#1 tool of enemy powers that come against the will of God and God’s holy Kingdom being ever practically established on earth – is to divide and conquer, knock any leader out, especially using criticisms! Find, fault, feel justified, speak evil of someone who is leading you or the group you are in.
So, in knowing this, if this were to happen to us, whatever shall we do?
DO NOT listen, Do NOT criticize, DO NOT murmur or complain!
This whirlwind in your life is a part of the circumstances and consequence that is now upon your life, this is why you are not able to work through some things that seem to face you over and over again. You have made a runway for all sorts of evil to land in your life, because you’ve followed the lead of sheep, or you’ve been a sheep who murmurs, or is opinionated and lead other sheep outside of the plan of God, which is to only share with one another words of edification, exhortation and comfort. You’ve not believed you were to verbally support and uphold imperfect human leaders, no matter who they are or how they lead. It takes a tremendous amount of trust in God on your part to follow any man let alone support him. Ya know, he is just a man, right?
God set it up that way. He says to us, “Do You wholeheartedly trust Me in all things, under the leading of any a people?” Then He requires us to prove we do trust Him as we follow and do not criticize human leaders.
Well, Lord you know how they are, if it was so and so, I’d surely trust You!
Aha, that is not trust, and if you pick and choose who you’ll honor or not, you do not trust God. When we trust in God, have actively alive faith in Him, we are blessed. When we do not trust God and have to have life dealt to us our way, we are actually involved in idolatry, that is not blessed by God, it is rather cursed by coming outside of His laws, that are already in force.
It’s just like jumping off a cliff with no apparatus and expecting to fly. It does not work, the law of gravity is already established and you cannot supersede it without enacting another order with the right apparatus which will enact the law of lift off of that cliff.
Many a time, people are angry at God because He did not cause them to fly alone with no apparatus off of that cliff they choose to jump off of. Did you do it His way, with the available law of lift, or did you desire God to defy His own laws set up by His word, which by the way, He does not relent on?
How many people in authority over your life did you choose to be your leaders?
Most of the people in our lives God choose for us. The Bible says no one, yes no one, is in a place or position of authority, if God did not place Him there. The question again is – do you trust God?
God is amazing how unconditional His love to us is, even when we complain! He’ll provide for us anyway. I believe He is so full of grace, while there is still a living chance we’ll trust and rely on Him, He is waiting in anticipation to save us and use us for His eternal purposes to be established through us as long as we are still alive on the earth.
I’ve seen people sit in church for years being rained on, being flooded with His spirit, opportunities for righteous change, and where they get to see life all around, but for some reason they are not getting it yet. Then one day they do. All the years it took were worth that one day. That’s how God feels. It’d be better to get it sooner than later, but oh the joy when one does get it. The rain keeps failing for that day. I’ve watched many a people struggle in the house of God, struggle with words they are commissioned to do, words that are offering life to their situations and I pray for them that they will remain under the word till they get it. Our enemies know how powerful the word is to move and nudge and prod and change us. He knows if he can take us out from under its covering it won’t be as effective in us, so he tries everyday someway, to steal us away from the hearing of the word. He wants us in a desert place, where there is no rain, and no eternal bread from heaven.
Having bread at church on Sunday’s is awesome, but standing in the rain that causes growth daily is the absolute best. If he can’t even get us to stay away from church on Sunday, but can go ahead and distract us all week and make us dry, he has one up on God. At least he feels he does.
Manna comes from heaven to us everyday. We have opportunity to gather with believers in our flock/sheepfold, and we have opportunities to join in prayer and in studies and in serving in the house, we could be at the house or bring our families to the hou

Exodus 16 Today

Manna and Quail from Heaven
1 Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. 2 There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron.
3 “If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual.”

6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “By evening you will realize it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 7 In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaints, which are against him, not against us. What have we done that you should complain about us?” 8 Then Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning, for he has heard all your complaints against him. What have we done? Yes, your complaints are against the Lord, not against us.”

9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Announce this to the entire community of Israel: ‘Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole community of Israel, they looked out toward the wilderness. There they could see the awesome glory of the Lord in the cloud.

11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the Israelites’ complaints. Now tell them, ‘In the evening you will have meat to eat, and in the morning you will have all the bread you want. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

13 That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. 14 When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. 15 The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was.

And Moses told them, “It is the food the Lord has given you to eat. 16 These are the Lord’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two quarts for each person in your tent.”

17 So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. 18 But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed.

19 Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.” 20 But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Moses was very angry with them.

21 After this the people gathered the food morning by morning, each family according to its need. And as the sun became hot, the flakes they had not picked up melted and disappeared. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual—four quarts for each person instead of two. Then all the leaders of the community came and asked Moses for an explanation. 23 He told them, “This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the Lord. So bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow.”

24 So they put some aside until morning, just as Moses had commanded. And in the morning the leftover food was wholesome and good, without maggots or odor. 25 Moses said, “Eat this food today, for today is a Sabbath day dedicated to the Lord. There will be no food on the ground today. 26 You may gather the food for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day.”

27 Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. 28 The Lord asked Moses, “How long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? 29 They must realize that the Sabbath is the Lord’s gift to you. That is why he gives you a two-day supply on the sixth day, so there will be enough for two days. On the Sabbath day you must each stay in your place. Do not go out to pick up food on the seventh day.” 30 So the people did not gather any food on the seventh day.

31 The Israelites called the food manna. It was white like coriander seed, and it tasted like honey wafers.

32 Then Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: Fill a two-quart container with manna to preserve it for your descendants. Then later generations will be able to see the food I gave you in the wilderness when I set you free from Egypt.”

33 Moses said to Aaron, “Get a jar and fill it with two quarts of manna. Then put it in a sacred place before the Lord to preserve it for all future generations.” 34 Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded Moses. He eventually placed it in the Ark of the Covenant—in front of the stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. 35 So the people of Israel ate manna for forty years until they arrived at the land where they would settle. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

36 The container used to measure the manna was an omer, which was one tenth of an ephah; it held about two quarts.

Studyin' Isaiah 55 w/ Lena's Journalin' Hungry? Thirsty? For what is really satisfying? Come Eat and Drink Today!

What is the food offered for the nourishment of each of us from our spiritual Father?
It says come to Me with your ears open and be listening. In that, there will be food for life.
Let’s look up the Hebrew word to see what was meant when this was written:
to hear, listen to, obey, announce, announced, announces, completely, comprehends, diligently, discern, disregarded, gave heed, give earnest heed, given heed, hear, heard, heard for certain, hearing, hears, heed, heeded, indeed obey, keep on listening, listen, listen attentively, listen carefully, listen closely, listen obediently, listened, listening, listens, loud-sounding, made a proclamation, make his heard, make their heard, make them known, make themselves heard, make your heard, obedient, obey, obeyed, obeying, obeys, overheard, pay heed, proclaim, proclaimed, proclaims, reported, sang, show, sound, sounded, summon, summoned, surely hear, surely heard, truly obey, understand, understanding, understood, witness…
In Hebrew, to listen and to obey are one in the same word, there is no separation of it’s definition. If a person said, “I heard you”, they were on their way to at least putting what they said they’d heard, on today’s “To Do” list. If they did not plan to do it, or to put it into practice, or make a plan to include the action as a new part of their day’s accomplishments, then they would not say, “I heard you.” Hearing and doing, in God’s eyes, are the same.
He has food for us, hearing His word with the intent and follow through of bringing our lives in line with His word, alone will bring the fulfillment in life we are all looking to be satisfied with.
Are you hungry, or thirsty? Eat and drink of doing the will of God! Only the doing of God’s will, will ever satisfy us. Notice man seems to never really be satisfied? There are offers all day long to be satisfied in this or in that, yet not one of the offers brings one the satisfaction they long for. By Design, He is the only way to satisfaction. Our lives given over to His will satisfies as no other ever will.
The word repent means - turn. Turn and go a different way than you’d previously thought to walk.
“Oh man, thanks for showing me I was headed the wrong way and can’t get to the place of true satisfaction or divine destiny if I’d have stayed on this path! I repent, change paths, and will now get on the better road.”
Our thinking processes are the most needful to repent in.
Pride is enemy #1 to living a repentant life. Pride wants to be right, everyday and all the time. Pride does not want anyone telling me I’m on a path that will never lead to a life of doing My Father’s will. It would rather be right than to do the will of another. It rarely ever admits a possible wrong decision. It is perishing in its wrongs, mostly wrong thoughts. If we change our ways, pride is put underfoot. That is way too excruciating a thought for pride. Pride has to keep us #1 above GOD being #1. It loves to rule humans. It isn’t even that interested in forgiveness, in fact it believes it doesn’t need forgiveness, it is doing pretty well on its own thank you.
Humility says, I just might have a few of my thought steering me in a wrong direction, along a wrong pathway. Man, if I have any thoughts that are incorrect I want to be correctable and I’d like to be shown a more perfect path. I’ll repent, on any given day, at any given time, and I’d love for someone to love and care for my life enough to show me if I’m off. If any of my thoughts are not as God’s are, I’d like to see what His are, so I can change and follow after His will, which is the only thing that can satisfy me in this life.
I need heaven’s perspective to invade my naturally minded tendencies and possible wrong perspective each and every day. I want to be a messenger for His word and will, making it as clear for others as I’d like it to be clear for me, to walk humbly along His straight paths.
If ever I’m incorrect, He is great and great enough to correct me as I allow correction and He will restore whatever areas I may have given the enemy place, through disobedient actions and wrong decisions made. Oh for the grace and mercy of God.
There is always grace to change. Always.
There’s always mercy on the repentant soul.
The soul that sins, without repentance, must die.
Pride will lead one straight to destruction and haughtiness will take one to a fall.
Do not abuse the grace and mercy of God. It is overwhelmingly available to those who desire it with repentant hearts and following actions.

Isaiah 55 Today's Daily Bread

Invitation to the Lord’s Salvation
1 “Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink—
even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk—
it’s all free!
2 Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?
Why pay for food that does you no good?
Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.
You will enjoy the finest food.
3 “Come to me with your ears wide open.
Listen, and you will find life.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.
4 See how I used him to display my power among the peoples.
I made him a leader among the nations.
5 You also will command nations you do not know,
and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey,
because I, the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious.”

6 Seek the Lord while you can find him.
Call on him now while he is near.
7 Let the wicked change their ways
and banish the very thought of doing wrong.
Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them.
Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.

8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
12 You will live in joy and peace.
The mountains and hills will burst into song,
and the trees of the field will clap their hands!
13 Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow.
Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up.
These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name;
they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.”

Lena's Study Journalin' to Hosea 6 Today

Why would the Lord “tear” a person “to pieces”? What does this mean? Why do we need restoring? Aha, KEY words, “that we may live in His presence”…In saying this there is a question to ask, “Where else have we been?”
The Lord has set up boundaries all over the earth; darkness and light, day and night, each day has seconds, minutes, and hours; and each week, the same with the addition of days and nights, then we have many other measurements of time, with seasons, years, decades, etc., etc. The earth is a part of a great universe and in the earth alone are vast landscapes, all with boundaries. Each boundary helps each of us to know where we are even on this small planet called earth.
The Lord is a God of grand order. Inside of His order, He has guided us and shown us where He is and where He is not. He has set up lines, partitions, and given us very clear directives on how to live, what to do, and what not to participate in.
Sin & Obedience are the staying inside or the crossing over these boundaries. It is so simple; Sin separates people from God’s presence and protection. If you go outside of the places in which He dwells, you are not where He protects. As a parent knowing about boundaries, you may teach your child, as our heavenly Father also teaches us about boundaries for safety’s sake. You may abruptly say, as you see a car coming swiftly down a road you and your child are near, “Hey Johnny, stay here! Wait! Don’t cross the road, or dart out into it just yet.” With your voice, you are offering protection to your child!
If Johnny decides to heed the voice of another, in his head, or not listen to yours, he may dart into the roadway and he may get injured, hurt, even torn to pieces. Did you cause it? No, in the order set up by God, it did, His laws did, but there was also a force that brings us within the guides and protection of all of those laws and it is called obedient action.
If Johnny had obeyed mom or dad, he’d not been hurt.
Now, Johnny could be healed, bound up from his wounds, and restored to a good relationship with his protective and loving parent, who is so thankful he is alive! He could say to his parental leader, I’m so sorry I did not listen to you, (now that I am greatly wounded) and I’d like to walk with you now and learn as I heal, I am making a mental and spiritual plan to stay inside of the boundaries you are so gracious to identify for me. I also am training my soul to like to hear your voice telling me where to stay and when to go, for I can go into a roadway that is clear. It was not the roadway that brought offense and harm to me, it was the vehicle driving swiftly down the roadway that offered me harm. As I become aware I also become wise, and can lead others to see that staying inside of the boundaries is protection inside of the Divine order of God. I did not have to be harmed to learn this, but being harmed now is fra better than being eternally separated.
Who else knows His order, but God Himself? Who else can we ask, trust, and rely on, to lead us righteously? That voice in Johnny’s head knows the order also, but wants to defy God’s order with disobedient action, for he is out to steal, kill, and destroy my life from off of the earth and out of God’s heart and presence.
Oh, that we might know the LORD!
Let us press on to know him.
This has got to be the cry, of every Christian person alive. This is the pathway to follow all the days of one’s life here on earth. This is the way to walk in, to obediently and lovingly pursue all of the Lord with all of the heart, soul, and body.
It is so disheartening to God Most High the heavenly Father and lover of every soul, to see His Divinely Destined children choose others, choose to listen to others outside of the order He has set up for us to be lovingly protected and led under.
As I wrote yesterday, who do you follow the voice of, sheep or Shepard’s? That is a Divine order of protection for proper growth in the spirit, that sheep would listen to and follow after Shepard’s. The only time sheep listen to and follow the voices of sheep, is when they are saying the same thing as Shepard’s! If they are speaking in contest to or contrary to the Shepard’s voice, there is trouble, watch out for hurt, harm, tragedy and maybe even physical death. Then again, it could be the body and even soul, after listening to the wrong voices are ok, seemingly well, but the spirit man’s relationship with God is weak and dying outside of the order of God! Be aware Wolfville is straightaway ahead of you.
I sent Prophets (Shepard’s) to say extremely hard things to you, speak truth, first in love, and then when you got to the place of a disobedient hard heart I spoke more sternly in grace and with mercy on your lost soul. I sent word, and circumstances and situations to prod you and lead you back running into the sheepfold, that was quite possibly done harshly in your measurement of things, but it was grace to help rescue your soul from eternal judgment where you’d stand before Me unholy, disobedient and unclean!
Do you see this yet? Oh that the blinded would be wiling to see Me, and Mine, and choose and desire to walk in My ways, no matter how hard they seem to be! They have no idea, no real revelation, how hard eternity will be without Me!
Remember the greatest expression of love is obedience, because one willingly obeys, not because they have to obey, or are forced to obey. Now they may feel they are being forced to, even by My Spirit, but what is going on in the heart in those moments? I’m watching for that. Remember I’m seeing the heart, I’m judging the hearts. The heart is where the want to’s happen. You can want to do what one is “forcing” you to do! If you change your want to’s!
Are you of Adam (fallen natured man)? Or have received and been born of Christ? (Have you been crucified with Christ? Where you are no longer insisting upon your own ways, but are willingly leaning on His arm of guidance, deciding to willingly do whatever He says to do, no matter how harsh it is stated or how hard it seems, because you trust in Him completely?) If you remain as “Adam” and will not become “Christ” – a Christian, willingly, you have betrayed Me, says the Lord!
Prostitution with other gods? You bought My truth and sold it to a stranger cheaply, it was not even worth you holding onto for dear life as though it was the greatest treasure on earth. It is gone where you are concerned, you’d rather walk in your own ways and along the paths of your own choosing!
This is the way back into a disobedient and unloving lifestyle. It will always offer itself, especially after each spiritual growth spurt and victory. The enemy hates when God’s children grow up or advance. EVERY time they begin to advance or take enemy territory, this offer comes. It may appear different each time, but it is the same offer, the offer for the souls of the godly.
I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back? What about when it doesn’t go your way, what about when you don’t feel like it anymore. What about when a better offer comes your way? What about when a better preacher, leader, teacher, parent, friend or even boss is offered you?
This is your test. Will you testify as a righteously tried and true son and shine for Jesus, or shrink back in weakness?
This is always the test!
A true faith must be tested true, every growth stage has tests to pass, each will be harder, each will prove a deeper and stronger love, if we remain.

Hosea 6 Today's Daily Bread, No Foolin' ...

A Call to Repentance
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces;
now he will heal us.
He has injured us;
now he will bandage our wounds.
2 In just a short time he will restore us,
so that we may live in his presence.
3 Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
or the coming of rains in early spring.”
4 “O Israel and Judah,
what should I do with you?” asks the Lord.
“For your love vanishes like the morning mist
and disappears like dew in the sunlight.
5 I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces—
to slaughter you with my words,
with judgments as inescapable as light.
6 I want you to show love,
not offer sacrifices.
I want you to know me
more than I want burnt offerings.
7 But like Adam, you broke my covenant
and betrayed my trust.

8 “Gilead is a city of sinners,
tracked with footprints of blood.
9 Priests form bands of robbers,
waiting in ambush for their victims.
They murder travelers along the road to Shechem
and practice every kind of sin.
10 Yes, I have seen something horrible in Ephraim and Israel:
My people are defiled by prostituting themselves with other gods!

11 “O Judah, a harvest of punishment is also waiting for you,
though I wanted to restore the fortunes of my people.