We are fighting the “good”
fight of faith so it’s a good fight. 1 Timothy 6:12. I agree
with Joel Osteen, the faith that can overcome the world is not my faith –
it’s not Mary’s faith, but it’s the faith that God has put in my heart.
My trust is pathetic, but God’s faith inside me – that is the victory that can
overcome this world.
For
every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through
our faith. 1 John 5:4
I’ve
been running into a lot of geese lately in my neighborhood and some were
walking across the road in front of my daughter’s apartment and all the cars
had to stop from both directions to wait for the geese crossing. I’ve
been thinking about making them a sign for their crossing. That
aggressive attitude sort of reminds me of the Jurassic Park movie when the
Tyrannosaurus Rex just killed the Raptors,
and the dinosaur let’s out this big roar and
the sign comes down, “Dinosaurs Rule the Earth.” Only their sign should
say “Geese Rule the Road.”
Geese
tend to be rather violent at times. They
can attack you! Anyway, I was thinking about this scripture and how we
should be in our prayer requests. Daniel struggled for 21 days in a
prayer request. So my first blog is on prayer and another one on the
hindrances of prayer (why we don’t get our prayers answered).
From the days of John the Baptist until
now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take
it by force. Matthew 11:12
There
are different callings a/k/a anointing’s and I’ve noticed that there are some
people have more of a “peace” keeping type armada, probably Joel Osteen is one
of those people, but I know my armada is to prepare for war. David was my
example. It’s because I’ve been involved in aggressive evangelism all my
life. Aggressive evangelism is when you don’t wait for opportunities to
come to you, but you go out and do the street evangelism, go out into the
highways and the bi-ways and compel men to come to our Father’s house.
The hospitals, the prisons, to the homeless, and the nursing homes.
It’s
like Jonathan where he did not wait for Saul to wake up, but he took his armor
bearer and he went and took a hill. To me that is just one other person
or musician and go minister to the captives with my guitar and sharing.
My
daughter and I were talking about how my husband and I sort of blew through
life the last 15 years many times untouched or unscathed like Job for a while
it was like a hedge was around my husband and my life. She was
talking about many times with owning a trampoline in the neighborhood where
kids could have gotten hurt, we were very fortunate.
The
difference from Solomon and David. God pointed out the difference that
David was a man of war and Solomon was going to have peace:
Then David called for his son Solomon and told him
to build the Temple for the Lord, the God of Israel. David
said to him, “My son, I wanted to build a temple for worshiping the Lord my God. But
the Lord
spoke his word to me, ‘David, you have killed many people. You have fought many
wars. You cannot build a temple for worship to me, because you have killed
many people. But, you will have a son, a man of peace and
rest. I will give him rest from all his enemies around him. His name will be
Solomon, and I will give Israel peace and quiet while he is king.
We
tend to think of peace as the absence of war, but I look at it as peace inside,
all hell can be breaking loose around us. I had perfect peace when my
husband had a heart attack in front of me. It was like functioning in the
eye of the hurricane, but it was the aftermath of dealing with the absence of
his presence, financial decisions, sexual tension and a myriad of other things
that robbed my peace and joy of losing my mate in life.
Praise the LORD, who is my rock. He
trains my hands for war and gives my fingers skill for battle. Psalm 144:1
It
is possible to be at peace even with our enemies. I’ve had a number of
problem neighbors through my life, a married couple who lived next to our
family who dealt drugs (more than marijuana), having wild parties and one
recently who sold his house that complained when people parked around his house
and called the fire department on one of my single parties. They
ended up moving away in my neighborhood, but it was not an “automatic.” I
did a lot of praying for my next door neighbors especially when I woke up one
day and there were police outside pointing guns at my neighbors front door in
my driveway. His wife called a domestic violence dispute. I did not
know if the cars in our driveway were going to be shot up. I had just
bought my car! Her husband did surrender to the police, and they ended up
moving (separating) and I got a chance to share my faith with my next door
neighbor.
When a man's
ways please the Lord,
he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Proverbs 16:7
When
I lost my husband I literally was conscious that a hedge of protection came off
my life. It was a like a bubble popped in my life, and I
started going through a series of spiritual attacks. I’ve had other widows
tell me the same. The only way I know to restore that hedge has been to live a
life of intercessory prayer. Praise is another one that has made up
a hedge around my life. I don’t quite understand the spirit of
despair, but it’s the only way I’ve been able to break it’s hold over my life
and it seems to try to oppress me.
I’ll
blog on it more but my #1 ministry besides prayer is the ministry of comfort
now. In the past, I’ve been an encourager, but I minister more
comfort. The Holy Spirit is the top comforter in life.
I
had made a conscious effort to get closer to God and to share my faith in a
greater way two months before I lost my husband. I get discouraged at
times from sharing my faith and back off. It’s sort of like the disciples
who left Jesus. He had 70 disciples and then he went down to 12 because
things got too hard. Sometimes, I’m very active and could share with
someone about the Lord every single day. I have shared my faith
with several maintenance men who come out and repair my house. It’s just
if I have a nudge to do so. My husband used to do all our own house
repairs.
I
know a person who has fought many battles with health issues as far as his
heart and I have a friend who has been in a battle with cancer. I woke up
one Saturday morning and I heard, “Put on the whole armor of God.” I knew
that was God’s call to me to pray. In fact, that has been my major
ministry is a prayer ministry lately. It talks about that in the Bible
about how widows seek and pray to God day and night. 1 Timothy 5:5
And
pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's
people. Ephesians 6:18
I
looked on Facebook and a pastor’s wife got attacked physically the night
before, and then I went to Indian Creek church and the pastor informed us
that a minister on the southside had been shot and killed by a mentally ill
person. We took up a collection for the former pastor’s wife and child.
Some
of us are called like David to fight many battles in life. Two things that
really help me in fighting many battles is a good sense of humor and also that
I have a music ministry like David had. David sang himself to many
victories in life. When even his own son turned against him (which I
can’t think of anything worse) is that he sang a song, and then his son who was
trying to overthrow his throne received bad counsel and his plans failed.
David at that time sang, "For the
LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will
withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.” Psalm 84:11
David
is really amazing to me in many ways,
because if I listen to people who teach success CD’s, they don’t encourage us
to be around unhealthy or not whole type people. They encourage us to be
whole so that we attract whole people. It’s not really what God’s word
teaches as far as we are to give more honor to the weak.
And the parts we regard as less
honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect
those parts that should not be seen, 1 Cor. 12:23
What
is really bazaar about this is at times, I find myself taking on a prayer
burden for people who are having problems and it’s wisdom to know the difference
(what is my problem versus a prayer burden). It’s wisdom to know what is
a prayer of intercession. I walked into East 91st Street Christian Church
one Sunday, and as soon as I walked in the door, I immediately got a migraine
headache out of nowhere and I never have migraine headaches. The women’s
restroom closed down for a health problem. I know that was a prayer
burden of intercession for that person.
Same
thing happened for two days I had this feeling of despair and then my daughter
was held up at gunpoint. I know it was an intercessory burden for her in
advance. They wanted to steal her car, but a noise distracted them so the
two robbers in ski masks stole her cell phone.
I
woke up one morning and I heard in my spirit, “Pray for your daughters.”
That afternoon a truck pulled left in front of my daughter’s car and she
totaled her car, but she only sprained her hand. Another time when I was
a teenager, I broke out in an intercessory prayer of weeping and travail for no
reason, and my brother informed me that my parents and him were almost broad
sided by another car and could have been killed. David fought many
physical battles, but my battles have been mostly in prayer behind closed doors
in life.
I
stood up to give my testimony at my sister's church as a teenager of some of
the things I did as a non-believer and the pastor said, "Yes Mary your
sister and the church were praying for you." Immediately, I heard
this voice say, "That is why you are a believer because of their
intercession for you.” Sometimes, I ask the Lord to make intercession
through me when I pray. It says that he “ever lives to make
intercession for us before the throne of God.”
Therefore he is able to save completely
those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for
them. Hebrews 7:25
I
received a heavenly language three months after I became a believer when I was
17 years old. It talks about making intercession and then it goes on to
say "all things work together for good" after it talks about having
an intercessory prayer life.
"In
the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought
to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:26-28
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