Heaven’s Response

Day Twelve

I had a pretty rough day yesterday.  I was not feeling good, having slept little.  By evening I began to feel truly wretched from lack of sleep and weakened from fasting.  So last night (really early this morning) I found myself preyed upon again by the enemy, attacking me with a migraine.

Peter was right when he said: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour,” (I Peter 5:8).  If you’ve ever watched nature shows, lions are opportunistic.  They hunt the young, the weak, the crippled, and any prey that have strayed from the fold.  The majestic males leave the hard work to the females, then bully them away from the best parts of the kill.  King of the beasts?  Hardly!  Lions are lazy, proud, bad-tempered, and opportunistic.

Just like a lion, the enemy attacked me when I was at my weakest: asleep.  In fact, that’s when these attacks usually have occurred.  So still desperately needing sleep, I woke up with a raging headache.  Usually I can pray these attacks away in an hour, but I was so weakened and in such pain that all I could manage was a wordless plea to God.

The pain subsided and in came His voice: “You’ve got to fight the enemy.  Fight with all the love in your heart.”  Immediately, I understood that when the pain is so bad, I have always longed for death’s release.  But instead what I got was Heaven’s response.  I understood that fighting with all the love in my heart means fighting for the love of my children and my grandson, fighting for the love of the missionaries that I’m here to serve, fighting for the love of Europe and her lost people.  Most of all, fight for the love of my Savior, who called me from the womb, and has a plan for my life.

When I thought about these people I love, the passion for them made my heart burn and suddenly all weakness was gone.  I stood up.  I took authority and told the enemy to get out of my house in Jesus’ name.  Then I started to praise my God—the best release for this kind of burning passion.

After a little while I returned to bed and slept.  This morning I awoke feeling much better.  The time I spent in prayer was delightful, and I didn’t want to stop.

I have heard many Christians say how tired they are of always engaging in battle.  Well, that’s life!  We live in a battlefield, like it or not.  We ignore that fact to our very great peril.  The good news is this: if we fight, we cannot possibly lose.  We are fighting a winning battle in a war that has already been won.  And the only thing we are told to do is to stand.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  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 6:10-18 (emphasis mine).

Stand, fight with all the love in your heart, and win!  God is good!

Dream Big!

Day Eight

After writing about all my devil dreams, I didn’t want to leave the impression that I only dream about the devil or even mostly dream about the devil—nothing of the sort!  I dream God dreams all the time.  In fact, so many that sometimes I am in danger of forgetting them.

In my book, Laughing in My Dreams © 2012 Alisa K. Brown, www.lulu.com, I told about some of my dream confirmations about getting this apartment, but I had forgotten to write about one dream that was particularly beautiful.

The dream came in 2 parts.  In the first part I was on a bus with Giulietta, the wife of the Music Pastor at my Italian church.  Giulietta is a professional dancer, and dances mostly modern dance and ballet.  So, Giulietta and I were on a bus, going to see my apartment (which I was fasting and praying to get).  The bus was filled with people from church.  Elisa said, “The Lord will give you every place where you put your feet.”

When we got to the door of the apartment I woke up.  I started praying, thanking God for my apartment, and fell asleep again.  The dream continued right from where it had left off.

The bus arrived in front of the apartment—and there is a bus that passes right in front of the apartment, for real, though it stops in the next block.  We went inside and immediately Giulietta started praying in Hebrew.  Her prayer became a song, and although I don’t understand Hebrew, I recognized that it was a song of conquest and victory.  As Elisa sang everybody began to dance, touching all the walls, the windows, the doors, the furniture, etc. (even though it was an unfurnished apartment, it has furniture in my dream).  Then one after another, the people left, and finally Giulietta left, too, and I was alone in my apartment.

This dream came when I needed reassurance that I was on the right track.  Of the people who knew that I was fasting and praying for this particular apartment, only Bethany was truly supportive.  The rest would try gently to persuade me that I should probably look for an apartment in a less expensive part of town.  But not long after this dream, I had a breakthrough.  And now I am in the apartment.

Now, while I am fasting and praying for understand for End Times strategies and preparation, I know that I am on the right track.  Breakthrough is coming.

This morning I got on the bus to go to church, and the bus got about 10 blocks from home, stopped and had everyone get off because the Stramilano marathon was blocking the bus route.  The driver then turned the bus around and went back the way we had come.  I went to the tram stop, but the tram was also blocked.  So I went back to the train station about 5 blocks away.  But by the time I got there I was so exhausted and weak (fasting and physical exertion do not go together!) that I decided just to go home and pray instead.

There is a beautiful golden church at the end of my block, and just as I got to the corner, I stopped.  There was procession of 4 priests and 2 altar boys carrying gold crosses and incense censers, and maybe 4 parishioners with olive branches in their hands.  I watched as they crossed the street toward me.  I had forgotten that it was Palm Sunday today.  (In Italy, they use olive branches instead of palm fronds.)

In my prayer time, I felt such a strong presence of God that I hadn’t felt in a long time.  An hour passed very quickly, then another.  We didn’t spend a lot of time speaking to each other, we just embraced and cuddled.  It was really wonderful.

I’m not advocating skipping church, and I’ll go to an afternoon service in a little while.  But God is willing to meet you whenever and wherever you seek Him.  He might even send a procession to meet you!  God is good!

Encouragement!

Day Three

The really cool thing about having the gift of encouragements (or exhortation) is that while encouraging others in the full spiritual exercise of the gift (in other words, not in my own ability), I am also encouraged.  Often, in fact most of the time, I only hear the words for the first time as they are coming out of my mouth.  Sometimes, if it is a word only for that person, I won’t remember what I said.  And even that is encouraging.  Sometimes that person will tell me: “Remember when you told me . . . ?  It was just what I needed to hear.”  It’s encouraging because I know that it was the Holy Spirit speaking through me.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul writes: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”  Then he goes on to show what encouragement looks like:

5:11 – Build each other up: tell others the qualities that you genuinely appreciate about them.

5:12 – Respect those who are over you: cooperate with your co-workers in Christ, especially those in leadership.

5:13 – Hold leaders in highest regard: don’t participate in gossip about them, and don’t criticize them.  In fact, take a moment to tell your leaders how much you appreciate them.

5:13 – Live in peace: deliberately seek to live in harmony with others.  Be willing to agree to disagree whenever necessary.

5:14 – Warn the idle: invite them to join you in a project.  Sometimes people don’t offer to help because they think that others are more capable or don’t need their help.

5:14 – Encourage the timid: Remind them of who they are in Christ.  Remind them of God’s great promises to them.

5:14 – Help the weak: Show love to them and pray for and with them.  Take a walk in their shoes and consider what they are going through.

5:14 – Be patient with everyone: Remember that everyone is on their own spiritual walk, and these people (the idle, the timid, and the weak) need encouragement and patient discipling in order to grow.

5:15 – Don’t pay back wrong for wrong: You may be as right and as righteous as you think you are, and the person who wronged you might be as evil and wrong as can be.  But only your reaction to this person will establish your righteousness.  As Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:44).

5:16 – Be joyful: Put aside all negative thinking.  No matter what happens, no matter what seems to go wrong, remember that God is in control.  With God on your side, everything will come out for the best, no matter what it looks like right now.  God is on your side!

5:17 – Pray continually:  Prayer doesn’t just occur in your room and on your knees, though that should be a part of your lifestyle.  Practice the presence of God throughout the day.  If your thoughts stray from Him to something you shouldn’t be thinking about, bring those thoughts into captivity.  Practice breath prayers throughout the day—breath out negativity and impure thoughts; breath in the Holy Spirit’s presence.  Memorize a Bible verse and whisper it to yourself throughout the day.

5:18 – Give thanks in all circumstances: God is in control and He is on your side, so thank Him.  If something has happened that you can’t thank God for, then thank Him for being in control and for being on your side.  Find something in your situation to thank Him for.

5:19 – Do not put out the Spirit’s fire: When the Holy Spirit prompts you to do or say something, cooperate and do it.  By cooperating with the Holy Spirit, He will work more and more in your life.

5:20 – Do not treat prophecies with contempt: You may not understand all prophecy, in fact, it is unlikely that you will understand all prophecy.  And . . .

5:21 – Test everything and hold onto the good: Whether you understand the prophecy or not, test it.  The test is God’s Word.  Prophecy that contradicts God’s Word is false prophecy.  God will never contradict the Bible.  Even if you don’t understand a prophecy, if it stands the test of God’s Word, then hold onto it and watch to see it fulfilled.

5:22 – Avoid every kind of evil: Don’t go into a situation that you know will tempt you.  When you are tempted, resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).

5:23 – Depend on God to sanctify you through and through, and keep you blameless: You can’t do any of these things in your own strength, especially this last one, so depend on God, and He will help you.  When you can’t do something (anything), God will do it for you and through you.  He doesn’t call the equipped, but equips the called.  Or as my friend, Pastor Chris, says: “If your ministry doesn’t scare you, then it’s not from God.”

So, encourage and be encouraged!  God is good!

I Will Make You Know

One of my favorite phrases in Italian is ti faccio verdere—literally “I will make you see,” or as we say in English, “I will show you.”  The first time I heard this phrase I didn’t like the implication of the literal translation as forcing someone to see something.  I could almost imagine keeping my eyes squeezed shut so that nobody could make me see something I don’t want to see.  But hearing the kind way this was said to me, I came to love this phrase and its fraternal twin: ti faccio sapere—“I will make you know,” or as we say in English, I will explain to you.

Last night I had the opportunity to reconnect with a friend and have dinner at his house.  Samuele is a well-traveled and sophisticated person who speaks English, but we always communicate in Italian.  As he shares more and more of his interesting life, I understand that some things really are more beautifully communicated in Italian.  It seems that the Italians can make language as delicious as they make food.

After a pleasant evening, Samuele walked me to the subway.  We found that the subway was closed and I had to take a substitute bus to a subway station three stops away.  As the bus passed the first subway station from Samuele’s house, I saw a fire truck.  I knew then that it was a suicide, which was later confirmed by the news.  That station where the man threw himself under a train is called De Angeli—“from the angels.”  But I don’t think he was hoping for angels to take him up to Heaven.  These subway suicides happen every so often in Milan—and more frequently since the financial crisis hit Italy.  And this is the fourth suicide in six months that has been done either by someone I know or by someone physically near me.

The increasing frequency of suicides is evidence of things that are happening in the spiritual realm.  The devil is working overtime to discourage people to the point of suicide.  And that’s easy enough for him to do with people whose faith is in their finances.

But I recently heard a sermon by Joseph Prince.  He said that we are wrong when we think (as we often do) that the devil starts messing up your health or your finances, and then we must pray and ask God to come in and make these things right again.  What he said was, “God is not running behind the devil, but it’s the devil that is running behind God.”  He said that the devil sees God pouring out blessings on your health or finances or work, and steps in to try and stop the blessings.  And what do we do?  We start worrying: Could these headaches be brain tumors? Am I about to lose my job?  And we toss and turn at night, trying to figure out how to go about controlling the damage—even when no real damage has been done.  Then he quoted:

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:6-10

He said that many people think that the “thorn in his flesh” is some kind of illness, but Joseph Prince said that other places in the Bible where that term is used, it is always a person—and it appears to be here, too.  But literally it’s a “messenger of Satan,” a fallen angel (angels are mostly messengers).

Here’s the part that blew my mind: he said that just like Paul, our response to these irritations, this petty meddling of the devil should be to thank God for the blessings He is pouring out on us.  Stop whining and start worshiping, praising, thanking God for the blessings.  It’s counter-intuitive (and I love that!), but nothing will make the devil flee faster than praise, worship, and thanksgiving to God.  And then those blessings can really start to flow as God intended.

Joseph Prince explained the flow of blessings from God like a hose from God in Heaven to us here on earth.  The blessings are always flowing, flowing, flowing, but when we worry, for example, about our finances, then we are tying a knot in the hose and the blessings can’t flow.  That’s exactly what the devil wants!

It’s important that we keep our family, friends, and neighbors in our prayers.  But the devil’s interference in this world is not a reason to despair.  In fact, these are times when people need Jesus more than ever.  You might be the only Jesus that some of your co-workers and casual acquaintances may ever know.  Many Christians these days are shy about sharing their faith, afraid of being laughed at, called “politically incorrect” or “intolerant,” or of losing their job.  But what if you had the chance to tell someone about Jesus and give them the hope that can change their whole outlook from suicidal to joyful?  And what if you are the only person that God has given this chance to?  I will “make” you see Jesus!  I will make you know Jesus!