Are we deceived? Do we listen to the voice in our head that brings in the negative thoughts that tell us we are worthless? Do we fall into the same sin over and over again, do we feel that no matter how hard we try we are still struggling in a certain area? I was trapped for many years with feelings of inadequecy, feelings of worthlessness, never being taught who I was in Christ. I remember telling God that there was no hope for me. It was one night late when I read Romans Chapter 8 and heard the voice of the Lord ask me "Do you live life like this Salli? I said I don't think I do Lord. I began to pray and even asked my Pastor the next day about Romans Chapter 8 and how I didn't think I lived like that.
It had become a burden to me that I had thought I had a relationship with Jesus and had indeed given my life up for him but when I looked for the fruit I didn't see any fruit at all. Living the Christian life was a struggle and I didn't find any hope in the way I was living. I felt as If I was living two lives, one for everyone else to see and one by myself.
I had a vision of myself one night full of holes, all through me just holes. I cried to the Lord for I didn't want to live this way anymore. I also had severe anxiety that I had lived with all my life, I had some days better then others, but overall I had built myself a self made prison, full of condemnation and fear. No matter how hard I prayed it just seemed to get worse. I also had terrible nightmares that I had been having since I was small. The nightmares were very similar, spiders in my room above my head sometimes a few, sometimes many and there was a figure of what looked like a man in my room most nights. I would wake up scared and fearful. I lived this way for most of my life asking God to help me and finding some releif from time to time but then it would go back again to the same and sometimes worse. Dave would wake up with me screaming and one time he even broke a rib waking up to my screaming.
Things began to change. It was last summer when we went to Destin Florida for a vacation that I fell asleep waiting for Dave to come to the condo, we were already there and the kids were in the other room watching a movie. I feel asleep and heard a scripture in an audible voice: "Having a form of Godliness, Denying it's power! This is a verse in Timothy 3:5. I then I had a dream/vision of people who lived this life filled with everything but God, looking to be filled with anything and everything but God and then going to church and acting like they knew him.
I woke up crying, knowing that God was showing me that It was me I was seeing. We had a terrible time on vacation, everything seemed to go wrong. At the end of the vacation my daughter said something to me that confirmed what God was telling me, she said "Mom, you act like your OK but I know your not OK and you can tell me all about God and how he can fix it and act self righteous but I know the truth". This hit me hard and if things weren't already bad enough they got a bit worse, we received a call that night that Dave was being laid off again for the fourth time last year.
We drove home and I was filled with sadness for my sin and my wanting to really "know Jesus", was I a child of God I asked myself, how could I live filled with such pain and grief and live in denial about my real condition. I wasn't free at all! We arrived home and the next day we had a couple of unsuspecting visitors, Michael Jackson and Marnus Coetzee on my door step, just like in the new testament church there sent by God to help me find my way back home. "Lord if I'm the clay then I've been left out in the Sun, cracked and dry, clinging to the prodigal son"! That was me. They came in and told us how much God loved us and they told Dave that God told them he should go after his dreams! They invited us to Home Group that meets in our neighborhood, it's a Bethel Atlanta Home Group we had been there a few times. It was to be the following Thursday.
That next week I was not feeling well and stayed home from church. After Dave left God told me to get my bible and I did and he said to read Acts. I read all of it, the whole book. As I read it I felt such joy as the Apostles spread the news of Jesus and performed miracles. I got to this one part where Paul asked these folks if they had the Holy Spirit. They told him they didn't know there was such a thing and so he asked them if they wanted the Holy Spirit and they said yes they did. This was at the church in Ephesus. So he prayed over them and they were filled.
As I read that I told Jesus that I have never had a feeling like that and so I prayed over myself, Lord please forgive me for all my sins and help me to live an abundant life Lord like these Men and Women in the New Testament Church I told him I wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit just like them, full of his Presence. I told Jesus of my holes that I keep seeing and that I needed him to heal me of my Anxiety and my Fears! Nothing really happened, I finished reading the rest of Acts and prayed again thanking God for the messages in his book that helped me see that if all those folks could have a full and abundant life then I could to and I would keep seeking him until I realized it.
The week went on and it was Thursday. I woke up that morning told Dave I felt we were supposed to go to home group and maybe they could heal my anxiety and while they were at it they could heal my leg, ( my right leg was broken many years ago and it gives out on me all the time). We went to home group that night and my leg went out on me so I went to Marnus and asked him if he could pray over my leg for healing, he took Dave's hand and laid it on my leg and then asked Dave to pray, all of a sudden I felt heat flow up my leg and all the way up to my head and the pain in my leg left, I got up and squatted and jumped up and down and my leg didn't give out it was healed instantly. I was so happy. Later that night we were worshipping and praying over others and then Michael asked stating he felt that someone needed to be healed of Anxiety, no one answered, the Lord tugged at my heart but I didn't want to say anything because my leg already got healed and I didn't want to have them have to pray over me again. Finally I raised my hand and they prayed over me, I felt warm all over and of course I was crying to the Lord!
When they finished I felt refreshed and new. I saw a vision of myself with the holes all being filled in. Then Kelly Jackson, Michael's wife said to me I see you with holes all over you but they are filled, God is saying you are complete in him. This was a good confirmation because I had not told anyone of the holes. It was God telling me that he answered my prayers and he loved me personally. There were many wonderful things spoken over me that night but the best part was that I went home and woke up so filled with the Holy Spirit. I finally understood what it meant to live life led by the Spirit of God. I felt like a new creation! The next day I felt all this love for people, I could see people's faces in a vision and I had so much love for them. I could see that there were people all over the world who needed to know of this Love that God had for them. I began to hear Gods voice about people and would stop and pray for them or talk with them about God. I still do this as God leads me to speak to others and pray with them or just talk with them, it is the most amazing thing to co labor with God. The most wonderful part was that Sin in my life was not an issue anymore. It was effortless to choose as God chooses.
Since then I have had another prayer time shortly after that where I was delivered from my nightmares and someone in our home group Dave Edwards could see the Spiders himself, again I had not told anyone he asked me later about the Spiders. I told him yes and was glad I wasn't crazy they were there, I realized that my child hood had brought some demonic activity into my life unbeknownst to me. I now am Free, Free from Sin! Free to live for Jesus! I have not lost my ability to Sin but I have such power from Jesus to overcome and repent instantly. He has transformed my mind. He has been working in and through Dave and I in this new life we have in him. We have found New Life, Intimacy with our God and it is incredible.
I didn't know what it was like to live a life free from Sin and to be filled with the Spirit. I now live every moment of my life in constant surrender to him and I realize that I am a Royal Priesthood, Seated in Heavenly Places!
As it says : Romans 6: 2b-10: How Shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus into His death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who was has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that he died, he died once and for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God!
This was just the beginning of our new Life in our Abba Daddy, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Our life has never been the same and we are seeing revelations on a weekly basis as to this journey he has us on. We are completely dependent on him and We are Free Indeed. If you are feeling some of the ways I described in the beginning of this blog feel free to send me a message I will pray for you and can even come and pray with you. There is abundant life available to everyone. I can't get enough of Jesus. He is my best friend. Join me for more blogs as God is leading me to write all my experiences down for others to hear of his Glory and Love and Provision. Pray for our journey as God unfolds more of what he has in store for us! We have never been around people who had the gifts of Prophecy or Healing and other Miracles, we had never been to a Charismatic Church and felt that these things were not real for today. We are forever changed and now know for ourselves that these gifts are real and God does still operate this way. God is real and can hear you, he does speak to you today yes through scripture and many other ways. Look around and know that you live under and Open Heaven with Angels Ascending and Descending! We have a habit of looking at life from the Natural world that we see and our circumstances! God is bigger than our circumstances. God speaks through the Natural world also, his creation but he is always speaking and it's like a dial of a radio you just need to seek him with your whole heart and listen because he is talking right now to you!
To God be the Glory for the Great Things he has done! We are in the process of going from Glory to Glory as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3. Read it and allow our wonderful God to change you!
Salli
