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