Devotionals
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. Psalm 29:7
Every morning when I wake up I look forward to reading my devotional book called Hope and Encouragement for a Woman’s Heart. It is the perfect book for me because this is a collection of wise and deep women – not men. Sometimes, women are better able to minister to me. There are men like Henry Nouwen who can hit the target on women’s theme issues but they are the exception. I enjoy my surge of fire morning moments.
There have been times in which listening to a male preacher has let to confusion. There was a prophetic-pastoral preacher who told us that we should be listening with our heart for the Lord. I tried and tried for months and went back to my regular way of hearing from the Lord. When God speaks verbally to me it is in my right ear. I say this because I want Christian's to discover their way into God.
I may have been taking the man of God too literally. My relationship with God is not essentially verbal. I thought the location of my heart would be the place that God speaks. When I am in love my heart feels soft and soothed. When I have a heart ache I feel a physical tightness of my heart as if it is boarded up. If I take medication than I feel numb. I am mindful of the general condition of my heart because it affects my relationship with God and my vocation.
I am a tactile/visual and big picture learner. Certain sections of my brain are more accessible for me to use. It is scientifically proven that various temperaments use certain quadrants of their brain more than others. I say this not for the feeler types but for the logical thinkers who need evidence from the outer world. They are the Extroverted Thinkers in the Myers-Briggs.
When God wants to get a message to me He typically communicates through my emotions. This could be my heart but it also includes my brain – dopamine hits - and the nerves. It is holistic. It’s like a fire hose on full blast throughout my body. The expression “a hair raising experience” would be appropriate.
There’s a ride at an amusement park where I worked called the Fire Brigade. It’s a ride I would love to go on but it is designed only for the wee ones. Each kid rides on a fire truck that moves (drives) around a building while a ladder platform moves up and down. At the same time the kids are holding a real water hose that points at the building and sprays water into the fake windows that look like they are on fire. The kids are in charge of the amount of water sprayed.
While in worship, there are moments where the fire brigade of the Spirit comes and actually adds fuel to the fire. It is a Psalm 29:7 experience: The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. It is not God’s audible voice but his most frequent means of communicating with me.
When something is right or wrong I feel the surge. I don’t always know what is going on but I know something is clearly off or truly heavenly. There are no shades of gray. It is either an urgent crisis or it is an arrest of glory.
Music was loudly played at the amusement park where I worked. As I was waiting for a client (kid) to approach my booth and get their face painted, God amplified the specific lyrics from Thriller by Michael Jackson: I can thrill you more than any ghoul could ever dare to try.
This experience cracks me up because I am in tune with the angelic realm. So, there are all these demons doing their ghoulish things. Ghoul means evil spirit. What God was saying to me is that His power is more amazing than a demon’s.
Yeah, I know. Essentially, demons creep me out and can from time to time alarm me. But mostly they are just yucky and hideous in all of their ways. They look like they have been burnt down to charcoal withsoot all over them. Their voice cackles and their movements are far from elegant. God himself is many more times glorious. He can take their fire power and wipe it out.
God’s warrior angels are swift and potent because they are fueled by His presence. They are ferocious like wild cats and even look somewhat like tigers and pumas, etc. But warrior angels are only vicious against demons because good overpowers bad. I’ve heard plenty of human philosophy that says that dark (evil) over-rides light (good). That is a lie that many of us buy into if we are not paying attention.
Demons are drawn to us Christians because they want the power and authority that we hold. Specific demons are drawn to you because of their specific original calling and skill. Many of us do not know who we are (our identity) and so we don’t remember our warrior-ness by staying in God's presence. By worshipping we can become warriors and by obedience we can partner with God’s plan. By acts of true goodness we can defeat the devil. By operating in love we can overpower the evil one.
As I was typing this God reminded me of a dream where I was in a room with only a canvas which had been cut with slashes and essentially was painted with a messy and ugly technique. I walked up to it to see if I could read the artist’s signature. As soon as I read the name Satan, all sorts of chaos ensued such as an obnoxious swirl of confusion and a loud, harsh, overwhelming noise. I felt I was being sucked into the painting.
I let out a scream for God and He walked from the other room and grabbed Satan and placed him into a playpen. I was free from Satan’s grip. There Satan glared and snarled at me like a bull dog in a cage. I thought: With that fence you are not much of a threat though you’d like me to think you are.
God can put out Satan’s fire with His surge but he can also build His fire. Either way, it can be quite thrilling.
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
This article has been read 427 times < Previous | Next >
Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.