Law, rules, and priorities

Some thoughts this Monday morning June 9,2020.

 

These are some of the most confusing times in the history of the United States when values and rules that the nation was founded upon are being changed, threatened, or ignored.  I admit it is difficult to know how to walk through the circumstances of our lives and maintain the mindsets that we have had regarding previous values and rules and foundations of this society and our lives.

 

I read an article yesterday by Brittany Breese wife of NFL Drew Breese. It got me to reconsidering some of my "values" in light of things going on in this world.  What are my "values" based on and what role do "my values” play in my interactions with my fellow human beings?  

 

Recently a friend of mine shared her take on the now often mandated "face mask" issue. She said she isn't going to wear them and put her decision within the framework of what the scriptures say about eating or not eating foods offered to idols.  

 

Do I agree with her? I am beginning to realize that whether I agree or not, my first responsibility as a believer in Jesus Christ IS NOT to hold up MY standard of values in relationship to hers, but to listen to her and seek to have insight into what she is concerned about and perhaps struggling with.

 

I tend to be one that holds up high standards of right and wrong IN MY OPINION.

And as things begin to crumble around this society, I realize that I have failed to put relationships above standards.

 

This morning I read a post where a top executive in government slammed a person who took a stand to put relationship issues above a previously "personally determined standard" which the executive himself held in high honor.  And Holy Spirit spoke pointedly to my heart that I often do this.

 

My daughter who lives in Seattle where there have been 10 nights of riots/looting/fires following protests called me on the choices of priorities that I chose to speak about. For I had pointed to the riots/looting/fires as consequences of the protests, and she shared that I was missing completely the hurt and pain and frustration of the human beings that were protesting legally. Like Drew Breese who at first said that kneeling at a football game was dishonoring the American flag and then apologized realizing in this day, that honoring the American Flag is not the ultimate priority in life...that he realizes today, that kneeling is a way of communicating to those that are hurting and feeling oppressed that someone is listening. Communication and listening above a highly held standard of the flag’s value.

 

I know well within myself, that my values and standards OFTEN stand between me and hearing and listening and showing personal interest in folks whose values and way of life might be different from my own.

 

A new friend recently told me how her daughter who was a drug addict and lived on the streets and liked her freedom to come and go and do what she wanted finally got through to her. “MOM.... quit telling me to live the kind of life you do. I don't want to have to go to work and be consumed by a job like you do, or live a lifestyle like you do. True, I don't like the consequences of my life style, but I don't want yours. Mom, I don't keep telling you to come try my life style...that yours is wrong. Mom, I just want you to be with me, to hear what I am doing like I like to hear what you are doing even if it isn't what I choose as my life style.”

 

How do we validate a human being who is in a lifestyle that violates our own standards and values?  

 

One of the things that I hear the Lord saying to His Church in these conflicted days, is HUMBLE YOURSELVES.... turn from your wicked ways, praying...THEN I will hear from heaven and bring healing to your land.

 

He doesn't speak to the homeless who are "comfortable" in their life style or the drug addict or alcoholic to change so he can heal this land...but to us who proclaim His Holy Name.... that we are to come to the conscious awareness that we are human just like the people under the bridge, the protestors, the rioters, the criminals in our prisons.

Many of my fellow believers don't even know what it means to be human...and therefore it is impossible for them to be humble. Often we excuse our humanity by saying, I'm just human. I make mistakes.  While that is an aspect of our humanity.... my humanity says, I am flawed, at the core, and there is nothing you do as a human that I am not capable of.

 

Jesus made it clear as he dealt with the difference between the way the Law, which is holy, looks at things and the way God's Love and Life in Christ Jesus addresses things.

Ok, I haven't murdered anyone...I'm ok under the Law...but Jesus said...if you call a person a fool...you are guilty of murder.   Yikes.... if you look on a person with lust and desire, you are guilty of adultery/fornication.  

 

A few days ago I listened to a local pastor talk about his time in the woodshed with the Holy Spirit. And God was dealing with him with his anger...and he shared with his people, the struggle he has in laying down his anger.... which by the way is the result of our "judgment" of a situation that it is not "what it should be."  Ultimately, the problem with anger, which is an emotion that comes from my thinking/mindset about a situation, is that most of us validate our anger based on our assessment of what is right or wrong according to me.  Or maybe it is according to what I think God thinks.

Man's anger does not produce the righteousness of God. God has provided the cross for us to lay our anger down on and allow the power and life of Christ in us to come forth according to HIS MIND, which He paid the price to dwell in us.

 

My friend today was struggling with the issue of whether to go to church services where it's required to wear a face mask along with having to call and indicate what service one will attend in order to have proper social distancing.  She admittedly hadn't heard from the Lord yet.... and to my failure...I admit that I suggested that if she'd lay her "standard" of wearing a mask down at the cross, she might hear from the Lord. So I ended up doing just exactly what I've been talking about.  I didn't identify with her struggle to know how to relate in the midst of a confusing time.... instead I gave an unsolicited suggestion which in itself just “laid out another judgment.”

 

The protests that are going on around the world are awakening many in the Body of Christ to something that has long been deficient in our community and fellowships.

 

How often someone shares something and we reply with a seemingly appropriate "bible verse" or admonition?  Yep, guilty here.  How hard it is to even lay our right scriptures down at the cross...let go of "our rightness" and maybe just hug someone...(in violation of social distancing even, maybe?)  I notice the protestors are so concerned about the injustice they have identified with that social distancing and the fear of getting covid19 is way down on their "value system"...though it appears the utility of wearing face masks is way high because it keeps them from being identified and protection from tear gas!

 

So what am I saying?  Humility/humbleness humbling ourselves before the Almighty God means that we are free to be human and in total need of Him, in total need of His love to even love someone. And more, that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which we personify in laws and in THE Law...kills us. It keeps us from being free to be the weak and frail humans we are that God has chosen to indwell and pour His spirit upon. All law tells us we aren't good enough...and encourages us to keep making an effort to be good and do “right” which ultimately we can never do 100% because I am human.

 

I hear Jesus saying this in the story of the rich young ruler. And some of you may be at odds with me over this understanding of scripture...The young ruler comes to Jesus...but he isn't recognizing him as LORD, Messiah, but...a good man...a good teacher...1st mistake which Jesus immediately addresses...why call me that? No one is good but the Father...and then the young man asks what more he can do to "please God" as he's done all he could in keeping the law. And how does Jesus respond? Jesus responded to him as someone who is looking to the law to save him, to approve him so in that vein, Jesus says, “OK...young ruler...go sell all you own and give it to the poor.” and the young rich man went away sorrowful.

 

Under the law...there is NO END. There will always something else we will have to do to please the Father.... because the law was given to show us our humanity, our inability to please God.  Pleasing God isn't possible except by the Spirit of God working in us.

 

He alone makes us acceptable to God.

 

Jesus died to make all men acceptable to God. Until we recognize our base humanity...and realize the death that reigns in our human flesh, we will have no fellowship with anyone.... because that is the only ground to really recognize our humanity...to be humble and truly relate to other.  It is where and only how I can see my fellow human beings as equals, equally corrupt in heart and therefore FREE OF MY JUDGMENT. Ouch.

 

And the neatest thing is that it is also the place where I AM FREE of my own anger, resentments, and expectations...free to admit them and lay them down rather than carry them as weights and anchors of my soul.  Here I can relate to my fellow humans who are hurting, those who carry weights and have their souls twisted from years of injustice....

 

Does it mean I go out and protest on the streets? I can't even respond to that because that is something each person much assess according to whether or not he's willing to pay the price to do or not to do...just as I must. But can I listen to him if he choses to protest and I don’t? What if he's caught up in rioting or porn or addiction?

Can I relate to him where he is?  Probably not unless I live and move and have my being in Christ Jesus...because He does relate to every human being for whom He died, whom He created to live in Him.... But what if they reject Jesus...then I ask...Father what are you doing and how do I co-labor with you in that person's life?  Will I weep with those that weep even if maybe they week in loud voices of protest?

 

Even writing this from the comfort of my 40 foot Fifth wheel surrounded by flowers and green trees and the quietness of a rural setting...I have to ask once again, Lord how am I relating to You, to your children, to my fellow believers, to those who are angry? It comes down to how do I relate to my husband who is angry? to fellow believers who are angry with the angry protestors? Those who are angry that they are told to wear facemasks and they don't like to be told to do anything, much less wear facemasks that makes it hard to breathe normally?  

 

These are things each of us must work out before and with the Lord Himself and His word....otherwise we just put up another "law" or "rule" by which to insulate our own beings from the reality of our human nature and our total need of Him.

 

Meri Ford

 

Questions about rights and responsibilities

Questions about rights and responsibilities  by Meri Ford

In this time when things are changing by the day, I have way more questions than I have answers as relates to the what and why and when.

One of the questions I have stems from something I remember being taught back in the 70s. If you are focused on your rights you are probably aren't fulfilling your responsibilities.

We live in a country that extended certain "rights" to its population through its Constitution.  In the news and in conversation I  often hear people talking about demanding their rights, defending their rights, and blaming a variety of circumstances and people for the loss of what is believed to be their "rights." And at the top of those "demanding"to exercise their rights in the face of "governmental  declarations" are a lot of those who would call themselves "believers in Jesus Christ" defending their governmental right to freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. And each time I hear these things, I find myself wondering, "Is this matter of "constitutional rights" something foundational to our faith in Jesus Christ, or is it something tied to the "babylonian system of governance?"

I hear folks say who often quote  an old saying...if good men sit back and do nothing.....

or to quote John Stuart Mill (not Edmund Burke) more precisely  Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” So I wonder does that justify some of the "fighting for our rights" in 2020 and in years gone by?

 A question that some  of you will answer yes to and some of us are still wondering about. 

As believers what inalienable rights do we have?  NONE as it represents the "babylonian system of governance" or modern day governments. As believers we have one right that no one can take away and that is to live in Christ Jesus....and whether I live or die physically, my life is hid with Christ. Beyond that, do I have any rights?  I see none in the record of the Word of God or any of our foundational  "theology" but I do have responsibilities and obligations totally independent of what "human government" might impose but based in who Christ is in me.

When Peter and others preached the gospel of Kingdom of God they didn't wait for the approval of ruler authorities nor did they justify their preaching based on some inalienable right. Rather they simply were obeying the Word of God as their personal responsibility before the Lord and were willing to pay the price. They knew the price that each could pay if they were arrested for continuing to preach the good news of Jesus Christ.  

I do question today if having the right to congregational meetings constitute the same foundational "obedience" to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul and Peter and others throughout history often given their lives to doing.  

A local pastor has "renamed" his congregation  Relocation Church....and saw 10 years ago in a vision that they wouldn't be able to meet in the church building in his small town.

So they relocated to an area that allowed cars to drive up and appropriately space and continued what they "normally have" with some alteration as a normal church service out of doors.  My question, "Is this the kind of "change" in congregational life that God is calling for amidst this global Sabbath Rest, just a physical change in location of the congregations so they can continue to worship and gather together as they always have?" It is my question...and I'm not sure of the answer but this seems to be the same thing we have always done in a different dress of maybe a different color and style. I appreciated this  same pastor's sermon that I heard on Facebook and his heart cry was that we seek the Father and his heart and be drawn closer into relationship with him, a message I hear Holy Spirit resounding across the globe. But do we just "put that message of intimacy" into the same basic format of congregational gathering than we've had for years in the USA and maybe the western world? What would Holy Spirit really want of us as He calls us to intimacy with  the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Recently I listened to a Sunday service by another local pastor...who had been my personal pastor 30 years ago who has returned to this area.  I admit that I didn't listen to the whole service because the first 25 minutes was service as usual as if it were 30 years ago. I was disappointed.  The ecclesia is generally considered irrelevant to the majority of Americans and much of the world, often no longer even presenting a "threat" to their self-centered lifestyles or idolatry. And how else could it be when much of our congregational gatherings are centered around the life style of the congregation itself, save maybe 20 min or so of the "preaching"?

Is our fighting for our rights as Americans a godly act, or could it be rebellion in a very disguised role for us who are called Believers in Jesus Christ?

Is the "conservative stand" taken by many evangelical and charismatic churches (or on the other hand liberal stands by other groups of church people )and others more a proclamation of their right to their own moral thinking, than it is a matter of living out a personal intimacy with Christ Jesus?  

Is the "church" in China and in Islamic countries suffering because they don't stand up for their "rights" or because they are living out their personal responsibilities to their Lord and Saviour?  Are the thousands of believers dying in Nigeria and other parts of Africa experiencing the result of their failure to "have rights" or is it the result of them living out their personal relationship in Jesus Christ to the death? Is the "church" and the message of Jesus Christ growing in those countries or is the "church" dying due to their lack of rights...dying like we're seeing happen in the USA and much of the West?

Perhaps you have the answers to some of these questions...I'm not sure that I do.

But hopefully you will seek the Lord and be open to hearing what He is saying about these things as they apply to you.

Meri

Awakening without Repentance?

Awakening without Repentance?

I hear so many calling for prayers for an end of Covid19 pandemic. I hear others calling this the devils way of keeping the harvest from being brought in.

From the first time I heard people calling for God to end the Covid19pandemic, I was revolted in my spirit, not because I wouldn’t want this pandemic to end,  for I surely do and grieve over the loss of lives and livelihoods it has brought by our human response to it. Yet…consider…without repentance, without yielding our lives to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and learning to live out of His Life that comes to dwell in us, forsaking our idols of various kinds, what would lie in store for this nation?  

Is it possible to have a great “revival” without repentance?  Is it possible to have a great revival without the “good news of the Kingdom of God” which begins with repentance from dead works…all the things we do to please God and “do right” as if to be righteous apart from Him was being preached?  Without repentance from the arrogance of this century’s achievements and our immorality what will be the end?  My past life is testimony to what a professing Christian can do without letting the Lord deal with root issues of lust and desire rooted in the control of our own lives. And the price is very high though God’s grace is more abundant!.

What will happen to this nation if we go through this pandemic and the “Church” doesn’t clean house? If the “church”, we called out ones into the Kingdom of God from the way of the world, don’t repent of our fleshly lusts that proliferate in our overeating, our sexual immorality, repent of our desires to achieve and accumulate and be valued, and repent of our desire to be in control of our own lives and using others for a variety of self centered goals and purposes, what lies ahead?

I hear a few voices calling out to the masses of believers. …Repent…let the Lord clean your houses, bring new mindsets to your thinking that align with Him, prepare your heart as you prepare the ground for summer harvest. Plow up your fallow ground so the early and the latter rains can bring forth a harvest of souls.

At the same time, over and over I hear scriptures being preached and spoken from mouths of believers…..pieces of, portions of scriptures out of context!  Ps. 91’s promises without the condition of “abiding in Him”  and other scriptures dependent upon our taking up “our cross”…recognizing our paths lead to crucifixion and follow Him even as he took up his cross and conquered death allowing us to Live in Him, by Him, from Him.

I am chief among sinners and am learning these lessons AT GREAT EXPENSE myself.

I am learning today to walk in freedom, having cast aside my former ways in recognition  that they were “sin”, death producing, self-satisfying ways that brought destruction into my life. How grateful that God’s grace is greater than the consequences those years  that continue to produce ungodly results throughout segments of my life.

God will go with us as “believers” even though we maintain a life of immorality, even though we might bully fellow believers, we might tolerate immoral behavior among our fellow Christians without speaking Truth to them. But there is a price to be paid when Satan has an opening in our lives. And all the positive confessions won’t affect an inner change until we repent and allow His sanctifying work to cleanse our lives.

A great awakening is prophesied to be coming forth …..and will the awakening be accompanied by repentance?  Signs and wonders will abound, miracles will happen, but will it change the heart of America? Will we let the Lord take the place of our dependence on what is now a global economy, and government paychecks, and viruses that know no borders among nations that have no borders?

Will the nation itself rise up and deal with its Asherah poles and other idols and thrones in the high places of our lives carrying a variety of different names of aberrant behaviors  and deal with the offering of our children to the gods of self-desire and expediency? How can the nation rise up when these things proliferate in the house of the Lord and no repentance is being preached? It’s not a message of repent or go to Hell…which may be true, but the GOOD NEWS is that Jesus paid the price for our freedom from our self centered life styles and mindsets, and offers a new way of life IN HIM by HIS SPIRIT….requiring a “turning from” the way of thinking such old behavior is based on and receiving the indwelling life of the Lord Jesus and learning to walk with Him in ongoing fellowship.

It only takes a cursory reading of the prophets in the Old Testament to see how God deals with nations He has used, that He has richly blessed like the USA who turn from Him to their own self centered ways, drawing from sources of strength other than Himself.

For too long the “church” has preached a personal salvation…while the great commission was about nations. Only a repentant “church” that is growing in the sanctifying work of Jesus Christ is secure enough in Him to have a message to this nation or any other nation.

May it be so.

My thoughts in the midst of global crisis

My thoughts in the midst of global crisis....

In reading scripture this morning over and over I read where the Lord said that various kinds of things would come upon a nation as a result of the  people’s refusal to “return to the Lord God” and instead worshipped people and things, conjuring up demonic spirits and listening to people speaking who spoke lies and operated in magic and offering up of their children and their own bodies to the pleasure of idols of wood and stone ( commerce, entertainment, etc) controlled by evil spirits.

After 9/11 did we in the USA or elsewhere in the world, return to the Lord God whose name was invoked upon this nation in its inception? When on 9/11 when those of a foreign godless nation made their way through our system of pilot training and managed to fly planes and bring the death and devastation to multiplied thousands in the United States, did we return to the Lord God?

While there was a resurgence of church attendance did we as a people or nation return to the Lord? NO, instead leaders of our government said, Yes, the bricks have fallen, we recognize an enemy has attacked us. But our nation’s response was…we will rebuild, we will not yield to God but will amass our resources and build our manmade systems back up even better and will replace the ancient markers that were destroyed with our own choice of remembrances. And we will work vengeance upon those nations from which those men who flew the planes had originated.

We did not bow before the Lord our God and the lives lost in America’s longest war started as a result against  a history of odds against such success of  a war in that nation,  live lost which continue to this day to mount. We did not bow. 

Instead we divided ourselves over how we would restore America back to the prominence it once had, who the enemy was and how to protect ourselves, and how much money to spend trying to protect ourselves from those enemies who have come through the breaches in “the wall of the city.” The Lord God has said..Except He keep the city, the people labor in vain!!

And now a global disaster out of the heart of evil in the East has come killing thousands through a plague called covid19. Why is this different from the annual flu virus that has plagued nations around the world each year and killed thousands?
It is because mankind has “no sense of control” over this new virus, not that man has had control over other flu like diseases or things like driving while intoxicated, heart disease, domestic violence, homelessness or adultery or any other of our  patterns of sin called iniquities that kill thousands and millions annually around the globe.

Instead we blame one another, we legislate controls over man’s fleshly wants and desires and “freedoms” uselessly, and then comes covid19 exposing the weakness of all fleshly efforts at control. Yet we continue.

YET when men pray, men raised in the house of the Lord, who bear leadership in the body of Christ…how do they pray and invite others to pray?  What do we hear…cries for help, for containment, to have immediate solutions to shortages, to vaccines, to medicines. 

Covid 19 is helping us see the failure of governments around the world to have control over such a thing as a virus, much less human lusts and desires. And our natural response…more government!

In ancient human elemental times 19 was often thought of as the number of surrender, a prime number only divisible by itself and #1.  Even among men, it is often considered the sign of completion..leading to a new beginning.

In scripture instead of looking at 1 and 9 as man does, it deals with 10 and 9.. representing God’s perfect order in regard to judgment in the bible. And 19 is the basis of the way of tracking years  …a 19 year time cycle….Ps. 19 declares that the heavens and the earth and everything in it, is testimony to the existence of glory of the power of God.

So then what is God speaking to us about?

We are a weak and frail people. We have no control: governments have no real control. We as humans struggle to even deal with our own personal lusts and desires, or our tongue which cannot be controlled by man but only by the Holy Spirit.

Yet, in the face of this global virus, we’re crying out to the Lord God to “help us.

Help us get through this virus…to heal us, to deliver us from this consequence of evil in the earth. This is not something God originated, but it originated in the heart of evil and is perpetuated by human weakness and failure to yield in our helplessness to the Lord who is in Control, who raised up governments to serve His purposes both good and bad for the ultimate saving of a godly remnant upon the earth to serve him for all eternity.

Does this mean we don’t pray healing into and upon those who are sick? Of course not!!  That is our responsibility as citizens of the Kingdom of God…the reason the Source of Life himself is seeded into our spirits and it’s our choice and responsibility to release Him in power of healing, deliverance, encouragement around the world that it might bear witness that HE IS THE LORD GOD.

But to pray for release from these consequences of man’s selfcentered ways  instead of repenting of our iniquities, our selfcenteredness as individuals and as a nation only reveals the carnal self centerenedess of our lives, even those of us who proclaim the name of the Lord God. God is our healer and our deliverer…but he is also the one who shed the blood of his son that we might be freed from the power of our sins and inquities and free from transgression to walk in relationship with Him eternally. Then we are free to move in all the power and authority that He is and has put in us to bless the nations. 

This is the time to realize we are members of a different Kingdom, not like the kingdoms of men where these viruses and the sword and the wild beasts and pestilences abound. How we learn to walk in the Kingdom of God in 2020 is part of the invitation that 19 invites us…surrender…surrender  the total lack of control we have as human being over anything, especially ourselves, much more a virus or the evil of the nation from whence it appears to have originated. To think that we as a nation can deal with China and Russia from a human standpoint refutes the fact of who God is and what is going on in the heavenlies. 

This isn’t the end…but as men of this world in looking even at 19 would say…a new beginning….but for us who are in Christ Jesus, it is the recognition that judgment is upon the world in these days, and  it will continue as the consequences of our independence  and our choice is to be in this world but fully operating apart from the Kingdom of God. Our choice who are in Christ is to surrender our rights and desires and failures into the work of His love for us on the cross. Then we will give thanks knowing that HE IS IN CHARGE, even when nasty things happen by the force of evil. The end is known…Christ..the Anointed King already won…we’re just playing out the script to that triumphal day with praise and thanksgiving IN all situations.

Just a place of praise and thanksgiving allows me to see His hand in things; it allows me to see where I can operate in his power and authority, praying over the sick, casting out demons where they raise their heads against the saints, walking in proper alignment and authority with God’s leadership and the leadership of the nations that he has allowed to reign in these days. Interceding from that dwelling place of rest under the shadow of His wings where fear and alarm cannot enter. It is the place where death doesn’t reign though it may manifest itself in the earthly body. It it is not the victor, for the Victor lives and dwells in my body by Holy Spirit, my hope of resurrection,  the hope of being found in His image when I see him face to face! The Hope of the ages…all glory and honor be unto Him!

Meri Ford

One Mind?

January 21, 2020   Meri Ford

One Mind?

I want to suggest something that may seem “far out” to a lot of the Christians who would be reading this blog in the next few days and weeks.

In the upper room, it said that there were 120 and they were of ‘One accord.”

Ephesians speaks of the equipping ministries are to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry until we come to such unity in the faith and the knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord.”

Other places it speaks of “making us One”. Jesus spoke himself that we would be one in Him as He is one with the Father.  Paul the apostle spoke of being of “one mind. “and being “like minded.”  Romans speaks of “...one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And Philippians., "Make my joy complete by being likeminded, having the same love, being in full accord in spirit and purpose."

Why then do we hear of Christians who even profess to being praying and fasting over issues that concern this nation,  who are NOT of one mind, one voice? Why then are Christians, especially in the US, at odds over a multitude of issues?

Am I suggesting we should all think alike? NO….what I am saying is that because we know we are not in our human nature and with our human bent, in agreement with our fellow Christians for a lot of reasons that maybe there is something else we need to consider.

So what then do I suggest? I am suggesting that in most areas we have not laid down our human thinking, our sense of right and wrong, good and evil, and divested ourselves of thoughts that exalt themselves before the throne of God, and come “humbly” before the Lord,  aware of our potential to base our thinking on our own, even a biblical, sense of right or wrong as we assess situations and issues in our lives. I am suggesting that those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, believers in the Good News of the Kingdom of God, often seek the counsel and wisdom of God, search the scriptures for “correct understanding” and come away with just another aspect of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

James says if we want wisdom and want to know what God wants you to do, just ask Him as he will graciously tell you. However, as we approach the whole counsel of God, we can expect to understand what He is saying only if we come with clean hands and a pure heart and have been to the cross with all that human stuff we carry.

First, most of us are more interesting in what “we are supposed to do” than concerned with  what the Lord is doing and how to co-labor  with him in the harvest fields, or  if he is sowing and reaping or whatever the place God has revealed to us  that HE is working.

Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing. He only said what the Holy Spirit was saying.  Yet we Christians take our sense of right and wrong from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the ten commandments, or what some all New Testament law, and go to the Lord and expect to hear Truth and Righteousness Himself reveal to us what He is doing? Or we take it from what might have been applicable yesterday when God was doing something different than today, but we haven't really sought Him to find out what He is saying and doing.

As I listen to my fellow Christians, what I hear most often is that even if they are praying and fasting, they are still “bound”, so to speak, to respond to things that are before them in consideration according to their own moral and ethical code. I heard a fellow say that many Senators and Representatives that are in a bible study with him are seriously praying and fasting about what they must decide concerning the issues at the fore in the Senate. He ended his conversation by saying that he was confident that those Senators and Representative would make their decisions based on their own moral and ethical codes!!

No wonder we are a group of Christians, especially in the US, that are not of one mind, of one accord in word or in deed!  We are still feeding off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, using our personal moral standards given to us perhaps,  for our  personal living and relationship with the Lord, as the standard to interpret what other people  are to do \ and what decisions should be made in the political realm.  To most of my fellow Christians, I suspect they would say, what is wrong or bad about that Meri?

Wrong or bad….what tree are you eating out of, I would ask? The tree of Life in Christ Jesus, will reveal to us as we seek Him, what HIS mind is, and then we can bring our mind and thoughts into align ,not with what is right and wrong, but  with what He is saying and doing in our circumstances…be it an immediate application or an overall understanding of what He is doing in our lives and circumstance. 

How many of us take time to lay our own thoughts and opinions, and even our moral values and ethical standards down at the cross, so we can see and hear clearly what the Lord Jesus is saying and doing in our circumstances and how His love and power are being played out?  Do I want to co-labor with Him in his eternal plan, or do I want to have my righteousness based on a moral and ethical code which serves for us human beings as a “safe judge” of other people and circumstances apart from the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus?

I know for me, it takes much more time and energy to seek the Lord and what He is doing and saying, than it does to be laying down my sense of right and wrong concerning situations, to cast down every thought that exalts itself before the throne of God, and to truly seek to access the oneness in Him that he paid such a price for…that the mind of Christ might be worked in my being!!

Do we even want “the mind of Christ?”  I suspect we most often just want to know what to do and what not to do as if we were little children, still under the guardian of the law, not born again of the Spirit of God that allows us intimate fellowship with God, to the place of knowing and sharing in  what He is saying and doing.

For example: what is God doing with America and the government, and President Trump? Where does it fit in His plan, and where is it, that He is asking us as His people to co-labor with him in his eternal plan? Where does what is going on fit in with what His attitude with the US and it’s response to God’s plan and purpose for this nation? How would we know unless we lay down all our positive and negative and neutral points of view and opinions and seek Him? One thing my father used to say back when he would tell me about seeking the Lord, and that was, "Meri, you have to lay down everything you know, even about the bible, and right and wrong, if you want to have “revelation” of what God is saying and doing. " And obviously I don’t do that as often as I could because my life doesn’t overflow with revelation, why? because I don’t seek Him, for Himself as often as I could. Only then will I  know what He is saying and doing. It isn’t even enough to know what He’s doing in my life, because my life is intertwined with the rest of the body of Christ, those present and those who will in the future be professing Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.

There are so many issues the Body of Christ is divided on. It is so sad because we know that is not God’s plan for His people. His plan is that we have the mind of Christ, as  He works His will and purpose in us through revelation in our intimate relationship with Him.  Recently I heard of someone who takes a divergent point of view about same sex relationships. It saddened my heart, not because of her point of view, but because of the confusion and chaos  it brings to us, revealing that we are not hearing what the Lord Himself is saying or doing in this time. Do we know what the ramifications of  man’s way of addressing these issues is going to bring upon a society.? I suspect she had not earnestly sought what HE is saying and doing in this day and in this culture.  

His word is like a double edge sword. When we seek Him, it will always cut me as it gives me understanding of my circumstances as He is at work in them. It isn’t a cut and dried matter of right and wrong, good and bad/evil.   While there is good and bad, good and evil, right and wrong, it is always about us as we see ourselves in light of the love of God as revealed by Holy Spirit within us. To see others and political issues apart from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, requires laying down all the goodness and rightness and sense of wrongness, etc. we have at the cross so we can hear and see Him.

Father, I ask that you take us through the process necessary to unstop our ears and open our eyes to see you, instead of being blinded by our own sense of moral and ethical values and even the standards and precepts, and statutes you have laid down in the scriptures. Your Word alone, that comes from your mouth as we wait upon You through our day as we abide in you is what gives us Life and allows us to pour life into the circumstances we face according to Your wisdom and insight, counsel and might, in your own personal authority as ruler and creator of the world and the universe that exist around us! To Him be glory in the church. His mind, His ways, His everything now and forever more!! AMEN

Meri Ford

Meri Ford……More of Him?  January20, 2020

Over the past few years I’ve found myself questioning a song that I repeatedly hear in worship. And whether I am questioning it or my spirit is objecting to it, I’ve come to realize that God has a fuller understanding available to those who often find themselves singing,  “I want more of you Lord!”   And it goes on to say More, More…

Awhile back a friend and I happened to mention this over lunch, and her comment was “ I have all of Jesus I could possible have, for He lives in me.”   And when I heard this recently, that was my confession/profession…Jesus, You live in me and I live in you! Thank you!! You are all I have need of! Teach me Lord to lean upon you who are ALL in ALL!  You are healer, health and healing, Savior, salvation and deliverance as well as deliverer, you are the sanctifier and the sanctification and you who sanctify and I who am sanctified are ONE.  And for your prayer to Father, I bless you…for you have prayed that we might be one in you as you are in the Father, which was afforded up when Holy Spirit came to reveal you in and through our Spirits when we were baptized in the Holy Spirit!

I liked what an author from many days past used to refer to the work of the Holy Spirit, as the “release of the Spirit.”  

The price for having “More of Jesus”…is dying to our self. A mentor of mine years past said that if you want more LOVE, then one must die…take up your cross…your choice of crucifixion to die into Life in Christ.

Our human nature longs for more of most anything…food, travel, sleep, houses, cars, and “stuff  . It is common among those who are members of Christ’s own body, the ecclesia, to have the human mindset that we want “more and more of Christ” when we have all that we can possibly access IF we are willing to die into Life, casting down every though and imagination that exalts itself before the throne, being renewed in the spirit of our minds, putting off our human thoughts and ways and putting on Christ from the inside out. 

So often we as Christian “want” and our human mentality of “want” is external, meaning mainly we want to feel better, we want to be healed, we want better jobs, we want, we want. I spoke recently with a dear sister who admitted she has low thyroid and is on medicine for it. She sheepishly said to me…But what I really want is Jesus to heal me!  Yet it wasn’t her profession or her confession that Jesus, her healing lives in her and she in him.  She had not come to “abide” in Jesus the healer but wanted “something from Him.”  That is our human mindset. 

My heavenly Father knows that we are humans and weak in so many areas and He often miraculously “drops a healing our way,” so to speak, know we are children and have much growing up yet to do! In all this He is calling us to maturity, to understand Who He is and Who we are in Him, and to build our lives on learning to release Him power out of or “through” our lives not just to our benefit but to the benefit of others around us.  

The Apostles NEVER prayed for God to heal anyone. They released the power of God through the laying on of hands and speaking forth the Word into people’s lives. And that Life is a double-edged sword, cutting and healing us as it goes forth into the lives of others.

This is one aspect of what it means to operate in the “authority of the Kingdom.”

May we learn to grow up in our relationship as children of the King until we begin to manifest or show forth His very power and character, known in scripture as His Glory, the very express image of Who He is.  This is far different from what we “get from Him. It is as different as the food we put on the table for our family, or the clothes we buy for them, or the places we take them. None of it will change the nature of who they are because it is an internal choice a person will have to make. 

May we grow in the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Meri Ford

A New Focus

This morning while I was before the Lord and was talking to Him about the responsibility we have for all the aborted babies and this pressure that is arising in this nation to increase the availability of abortion right up to and after birth, He spoke to my heart and said. 

" Look at your own heart. How often have you killed people with your tongue and even now Christians are profaning abortionists and those who have abortions rather than crying out on their behalf and interceding for them? How often have you killed your neighbor with negativity and spoken against the president or governor or those serving your nation in the Congress?  The root of division in this nation is rooted in the failure of My people to come to repentance for their own sins. How often have you killed your pastor or other people in the body of Christ with your tongue and if you were good enough to keep your tongue did you in your heart speak that which is not in alignment with what I say about those people? "


I admit that I am much prompted this morning in my conversation with the Lord by the recent prophetic message R. Loren Sanford sent out in two parts...not what came out in the email today, though it too is powerful and focused on the responsibility we have as  His people to humble ourselves, and seek His face and pray.....and turn from our wicked ways.

I admit when I see the force of division rising across this nation that I am often bewildered. I live in Washington State where a potential candidate, who is himself from the left, is determining whether to run in the next presidential election. I see daily the division that is present in the news out of Seattle. Sadly, Truth is never the issue, but whether or not one side can "win".  And yet the Lord calls me to repentance for my own propensity to "compete,"  to get attention rather than in obedience and love to serve one another. There is no repentance for the nation and the state or my family or friends unless first I deal with my own issues. Then I can intercede and repent in various ways for corporate situations.

Several years ago I listened to one of those nationwide calls for prayer when people around the nation called in via some kind of connection so we all heard the individual prayers.Throughout that time of many prayers, there was NO call for repentance, no repenting only praying for and praying against. Another group I have frequently been apart of easily try to bind various forces in the name of Jesus, again without any sense of humbling ourselves or seeking His face about what He is doing.
And I do realize that they, like me, really have not been open to being taught the way of the Lord as it relates to these issues.

I wonder also about healing in the body of Christ and how it is related to personal and corporate repentance? How often do we pray for healing for fellow Christians according to our doctrine or biblical pattern, without spending time "humbling ourselves and seeking His face?"  Do we know what His  perfect  plan for that person is and what the perfect timing is? Have we bothered to seek His Face knowing we are so prone to operate out of patterns and teaching rather than by the Spirit of the Lord?

I was reading something this morning and it spoke of being more sensitive to the move of the Spirit of the Lord.  Oh how I long for that and am praying into that.  It is so easy for me to do what is "right" avoid what is "wrong" or   do "what I'm supposed to" without regard for what He is doing as revealed by His Spirit.  I agree with what  R. Loren Sanford mentioned this morning in his Prophetic Moments:...I don't need "revival"  I need awakening...need the dead areas of my thinking illuminated with His Light, the Light of His love for me and for this world.
Last night my husband and I watched an old movie about some priests in Ireland. The lead actor..the leading priest made the comment that "at The End  the only thing that will matter is LOVE."  Now he was not speaking about a ooey   gooey feeling or emotion but that deliberate choice to honor and treat people with the care and concern that Father has shown us in Christ Jesus!! And he was struggling with his own failure to love like that!  We too  wuxas Christians are often as guilty of  such perversion in 2019 as the world. Yet we easily rail against the rise of such pouf as if we somehow were better than that!
It is time we wake up as believers in Christ Jesus, and let His light shine upon us and within us......His glory shining upon us will illuminate in us what we can't or haven't chosen to see...and in the light of that Love, we will be free to let go of the guilt and shame that has held us in attitudes and behaviors that keep His love from being seen in this increasingly dark and chaotic world.
Meri Ford   February 1, 2019