MISUNDERSTOOD

"That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. 
That which is born of the spirit, is spirit." John 3:6

"But the natural man does not receive the things 
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him:
nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor. 2:14

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock,
If any man 
hear My voice..." Rev 3:20

The Body of Christ is called to be One.
A single, living organism in the earth, whose source is God.
And affecting the world around us by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit within us is "dunamis" power, like dynamite, per 2 Tim 1:7,
so our lives should be so very affected that the Holy Spirit is noticeable.
   Those who appreciate God will be encouraged - that's one affect.
Those who do not appreciate Him will be convicted
- and that's another affect.

And The Holy Spirit is also a spirit of unconditional love (agape) within us, per 2 Tim. 1:7,
so then our lives should be so affected that we do not suffer with an inner fight with our calling,
that is, we should know our acceptance with God in security.
Our hearts secure in Him.
So secure that we pour this His Spirit out,
so
those who need God and are thirsty for Him will be satisfied.
And those who may not know they need God may taste and see that He is good.

The word says that what is of God, born of His Spirit,
is not like what we find around us in this world nor in our human nature.

Love -
I love you because / as long as you love me, is not God's love.

And Hope -
When we hope God does something to help someone,
but we have no idea if He will or not,
it is not a living hope.
That's not a hope born of the Spirit of God.

Faith -
We read this all the time, especially on facebook,
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for..." (Heb. 1:1)
This is not something I can manufacture out of my own human heart,
- it is A Substance.

What substance?
Well it's the substance of things I hope for.
How is it then I can hope and there is a substance to it?

I put it to you, that when the voice of God is heard,
He speaks substance into your heart.
His words are Life.
And the things that you hope for spring from that life.

You then have a living hope, a hope that wells up from within that seeks fulfillment in God.
It is HIS hope, not yours.
This is the hope that has no shame that faith rests on,
because it produces results!

Man's version of hope lands you somewhere else than where you'd hoped for, bereft in heart,
and often very sorry that you hoped at all... because it rests on man himself, and not on God.
(It can't be just me who experienced this enough to know. ;)

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him:
for he that comes to God must believe that He is
and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." (Heb. 11:6)
How did you know to come to God?
The preacher preached, and you
hearrrd.
That hearing was more than your natural ear.
It was a word in season to your ear and that word itself moved your heart to respond.
You were affected by a word of The Holy Spirit to turn to God,
repent of your way, and to ask Him into your heart and life.
The Holy Spirit spoke and you heard.

Again, not manufactured by the flesh.
Amy, what are you getting at?
Ha!

I'm getting at The Work of God within us is not something
manufactured of the flesh,
or what we already know in our humanity.
Human anything does not compare to what is
of God!

What is of God will affect us so greatly, as well as the world around us
that we cannot deny it's (His) presence!
It is UN-deniably NOT LIKE what we were expecting, or what we're used to,
but --
It is wonderful and accurate to the written word!
This is where studying the Bible really gets exciting!
When we hear from God, we have the written word to compliment (and confirm, and expound on) that hearing.

So, my life - I was born into a family that shortly after being born again,
entered into a ministry.
I played a small role in that ministry.
And it seemed everyone I knew was either a minister or studying to be one.
And I was just a kid.
But I longed to be who God made me to be, in a household that had a "cookie-cutter philosophy"
tied into
the real moving of God's Spirit in their ministering.

Not the end of the world, not uncommon, but a real monkey-wrench in my world.
Where the rubber met the road in my life was this incorrect expectation of what I needed to be,
instead of what or
who
I was born to be.

Fast forward 20-ish yrs and I am a single parent by way of divorce.
I am alone in man's eyes by way of divorce.
My divorce is understood by those who ministered to me great grace,
and who hoped for my life to be "restored".
That gave me room to thrive without beating myself up. That was good.

So I began hearing from God in this state of affairs,
and it is not much different than I heard before.
Which is comforting to me. Only me as it were (snicker).

Here is an example -
I once heard God tell me He liked me.
And the first person I shared this with totally rejected that as a word from God!
Wow!!!
That word set me free and made me jubilant and hit the mark in my heart to correct my sense of direction -
BUT
Someone criticized it.
Yuck.
And that criticism messed me up in my head.
So I repented of that word to some degree, thinking I was wrong to hear it at all.

Years later when this person and I reconnected, she had heard that same word too, and
it had made a foundation in her life towards other words God spoke to her.
As I had heard this in my post-divorce years again, and had heard much more by this time too, we laughed.
She had no recollection that she had rejected that word before!

But this was a pattern... So it went in my life...
I would hear and the 'more experienced' would wince or try to adjust it somehow.
Mostly it went un-confirmed for years, or I hid it. It was too difficult to share.

Years later my hearing was confirmed, and I was so fully released by the confirmation
that I try to be as gracious as I can with others when they want to share with me what they've heard.
After all, the Holy Spirit knows! He is very capable!
What could I possibly say from my natural mind that would help the Holy Spirit to get on more correctly with HIS work in someone else?

So,
There is an individual hearing "style" and indeed
an individual "order" that comes from God alone about how He teaches.
Because our hearts are very very complex!
And we've been very very very mashed under the wheels of sin and shame!

Psalm 25:12 "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses."

Rare is the ministry that understands that they do not have to analyze, crowd, disect or remove a word
from the depths of a believing heart, just because they haven't heard it yet, or didn't hear it the same way.
Man seemingly will always try to control God, will try to mold God into manageable pieces
and sort Him out good, so He can be dealt with properly, man's way.
Amy, that's so harshly put!
Yeah, I suppose it is.
But that's "the routine".

Because when Holy Spirit is in control, man is not.
Or should I say,
Only when man loses control
can the Holy Spirit be in control.
Because they fight, the flesh and the spirit (Romans).
And Holy Spirit is not like man. He just isn't.

We need to let go and trust God and let Holy Spirit take us over.
That's the need of us all.
We can, too, with confidence in God because when The Holy Spirit is allowed His way, He shows us God's heart.

Romans 8:27 tells us God searches the hearts of man and knows the mind of the Spirit
- - -and that the Spirit of God knows the will of God.
And it also tells us - that God knows the mind of the Spirit
"BECAUSE HE (HOLY SPIRIT)
makes intercession according to the will of God."
So the Holy Spirit knows the will of God -- they know each other--
and even better yet -- The Holy Spirit prays God's will into your life.

Holy Spirit knows how to work the work of God into you by prayer.
And Jesus sent Him to be our Comforter and to work in us.
Jesus sent Him.
But The Holy Spirit has been ushered out of many lives by man's ideas, perceptions, traditions and preferences.

Just the simple coming of The Comforter -
Who The Holy Spirit is
has been rejected and He is not allowed to have His rightful place in our lives.

Rightful because it's right to do what Jesus said.

Jesus said, "Wait until The Comforter is come."
Only 120 obeyed but they all were told to wait until He came.

"For the Spirit makes intercession...".
Anyone studied intercession lately? This is prayer.
And this verse bears out that this prayer goes on within us, in our hearts...
This is all about the Comforter coming to each of us and filling us
and praying through us.

Why don't we see the world being moved by our prayers?
Maybe because we haven't submitted our prayers to The Holy Spirit.

It's not that God wants to run us and we lose ourselves,
But it's that He wants to set us free so we find our living in His Spirit!
There is a freedom in being IN The Spirit!

As long as I was in prayer and giving in to The Holy Spirit in prayer
letting the Holy Spirit make intercession, as much as I could, I knew that the impossible would happen.
I knew that God could compensate and compliment and over shadow
and make and create a wonderful life for myself and my children.
This confidence alone made others uncomfortable.
I didn't satisfy a lot of people with my human suffering.
Because I stopped suffering!
I lived and enjoyed my life!

I would have great comfort in my heart in prayer, and then have no results on the outside
that comforted others' ideas of what should be happening in my life.
I walked it alone. And nobody understood me. Not one. Not really.
They might get an idea here and there, but God was faithful to keep me outside of their concerns.
So I walked with God as much as I could see to, and God remained with me.
I walked in what He showed me.
He didn't show me what they preferred.
He spoke to my heart what He knew I needed to hear.

These were my circumstances, set up for me by God, to pray about.
To hear from Him about. These were my circumstances to seek God in and about.
These made me press into the word of God and reach out to Him, hoping in Him,
proving Him daily to be faithful to His word.
I counted Him faithful as much as I could. That is, I counted on Him
to perform His word toward me, even though the circumstances looked
as they did to others.

I've lived a funny life in the eyes of other people. Odd.
This is a brave blog, because I'm just going to say what I know others are thinking - I'm weird.

I'm weird because I actually believe that I have gifts and a calling that belongs to God,
and that all the circumstances in my life until now are actually really good fertilizer for those gifts and calling.

And I'm weird because I will write a blog to share as I sense God leading me to, for whomever...
without worrying about these misunderstandings of others.

Why? Because I've been set free by God, and I keep being more set free by God.
He is my friend, my lover, my soul-satisfy-er.
I am not what I used to be, a struggling mess looking for love,
a pent up angry person from love rejected,
and a swirling array of feelings that I don't fit in.
Yeah, I heard from God during those years past
and also felt these ways too.

But I heard from God and still had my prayers answered.
My children grew up in a peaceful home.
They grew up knowing God is real and is loving.
They grew up knowing God is more their father than any
natural one. (That seems normal to me! :) )
And they grew up valuing their gifts and talents because I did not want them to live like I did,
unable to accept themselves as designed by God.

...And much more God fulfilled... But this blog can't go on forever...

I know I didn't and don't fit in with people who would
like to see me be "more like them".

Instead, I fit in with people - (guess what?) - who need my gifts.

The way I heard from God was by being alone with God, giving myself to prayer
His way.
And I waited long enough to let Him restore and rebuild me.
Not without a ton of failings along the way... And I am still waiting in hope for the finishing of my faith of course...
But in the meanwhile, I will not deny the power that's in me: The Holy Spirit.

The flesh of man will produce nothing but death.
The Spirit of God produces life.

Man's words are not God's words.
Holy Spirit words pray the will of God
into being!
Only the words from The Comforter, the Holy Spirit are alive and creative!

The Holy Spirit must be allowed to do His part in us!
Or we will miss what God has in store for us, and through us, in store for others!

I pray you will be baptized into The Comforter and begin to pray words of The Holy Spirit for yourself, and receive the words of God waiting for you, for both the purposes of Our Father for your life, and for those He has called you to.


(All bible quotes are taken from the NKJV of the bible except where noted.)