The Hills Roll On

How do I begin to capture what God did this week?

God sent us houseguests for the week, a married missionary couple from Madrid who would be leading the ‘Sendas Antiguas’ (Ancient Paths) seminars for the week. What a blessing! What a blessing! The first seminar was titled “Biblical Foundations for Finance”. I thought it was going to be a boring study of accounting with a Christian twist. God blew me (and all the lies I’d been believing about Him, money, and myself) out of the water! God revealed a lot of diabolical (seeking to divide) lies in my heart and mind that were holding me back from walking in truth and blessing. So often Christians adopt the ways of the world (which is held in the power of the evil one, 1 Jn 5:5) with higher standards. It’s a total set up. The world system is based on control; buying and selling. Buying and selling in and of itself isn’t wrong, it’s just inherently different than the Kingdom of God which is one of giving and receiving. Mammon isn’t just something we attribute value to, it’s actually the name of a Philistine god of prosperity. Money is an impotent man-made system to buy and sell. There is a real demonic entity that hides behind the system to powerfully lure our trust and allegiance away from the True Source of blessing and power. Lies abound in our psyche’s telling us money is our true need and salvation. Untruths and mistakes also abound in Christian circles concerning money (that we can use money to make God bless us). It all comes down to not knowing the Truth. Huge verse that God is revealing to my heart:

Hebrews 13:5-6 (AMP version really hits home): Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money [including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions] and be satisfied with your present [circumstances and with what you have]; for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]

Huge revelation of Matthew 6:24-26: No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

The revelation: Sparrow Faith – Provision does NOT come from works (sowing). We don’t even meet our own needs! God meets my needs by His Grace not because of anything I do (tithing, acts of kindness, etc), but because He Loves me! The channels of His support may change, but the Source always remains the same. The anxiety about money that consumes people, destroying entire lives, families and nations, is being fueled by a very real spiritual entity. Mammon wants me to put my trust in money so He can control me (emotionally and in every other way); like a beachball being held under water, Mammon is always trying to pop money up to the surface over me so I am directed by the money (more, Mammon behind the money) rather than me walking in God’s intentions, me directing money.

You know, there are so many things I could journal about, but then I think I’d just end up re-teaching the jist of the entire seminar. It was so bang-on that I don’t want to water it down; rather I want to whet others appetite for the things of God so that they will receive this instruction and His revelations to their hearts for themselves.

What I love about God is how He knows…where we’re really at, what we really need. That He’s concerned with our hearts. What we really believe about Him and ourselves. That He wants to root out the lies that choke us and keep us in bondage to the Liar and replace it with His Holy Truth. God wants us to walk in the fullness of the freedom Jesus bought for us with His own blood on Calvary. I love how He goes to extraordinary lengths to capture my heart so I will be rooted in Love, know the Truth in my Core and walk it out everyday in everyway. He doesn’t want me to adopt the corrupt ways of the world and call them Christian just because I elevate them to a higher standard. There were 2 branches of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; so whether I’m reveling in my own acts of goodness or going whole hog in acts of evil, it still bears the same fruit: death. Spiritual, emotional, physical, death. God is interested not in reforming people, but in TRANSFORMING them! Bringing them not to a higher standard of morality, but from death to LIFE! From slavery to sin to the free will choice to love and be loved by my All Wonderful Creator, Redeemer and Friend. My Father in Heaven, my Pappy, my Darling Dad who is Alllllllll good. I’m gushing, I know…but when you walk through a week of intensity like this past one and He just keeps hitting me with wave after wave of His Grace and Love, what else can you expect?!

(And I haven’t even gotten to the second seminar yet! Let me digest that one for a few days and I’ll share more.)

His and yours,

Tara

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Glimpses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.