Arizona Getaway

Word for 2012

This is what God spoke to me:  this is a special year.  The beginning of this year does mark a new beginning in the eyes of God for His children.  God wants you to be free!  God wants you to throw off everything that is burdening you, binding you, shackling you!  God wants to get rid of old fears, old diseases that have lingered, old ideas about you that are not according to God's word that come from man who does not really know God.

It is also financial.  God wants you to be free of financial worries, and free to pursue your dreams!

In order to step into the new, you must listen to God - take time to listen to Him, and spend time in His word.  You must obey Him and be willing to repent of sin.

If you will do these things, He can lead you into the new things He has for you!

Christmas Joy to all who enter here!

Don't be too discouraged by what I wrote in the last post.  Faithful readers, I don't hate people.  I was just ranting, and experimenting with going to a lower dose of medication - so low it's getting close to zero.

Finding that my brain isn't quite ready for that yet.

Just enjoy the beautiful things about the holiday and don't let any of the blues get to you!  Remember He who came to be your friend at this season.

Let Him warm your heart.

Tramp For The Lord, by Corrie Ten Boom

This is what I am reading right now. I love her story. I love her spirit and her passion for God, and her hope for women of any age - with no children and no husband. She lived life to the fullest!!! She was in love with Jesus!

In reading her, I realized something: I don't like people. I just don't like people very well. I am going to have a hard time being a good minister of God, because basically, I just want to go away and be alone. People are a constant source of disappointment, and discouragement. In the West, I find people are constantly dragging me away from a fervent passion for Christ. Unbelief is rampant. People who represent God at the pulpit fall short of bringing the kingdom of God to the earth. Few people desire God's presence enough to try to bring His presence to the earth.

I am just weary of people. In reading Corrie Ten Boom, I realize that in order to be a missionary, I have to love people!!!!!!!!!!!!

All I want is to find God's presence, and soak in it, and soak up from Him what I need. Without Him, I cannot do anything.

Unwanted same-sex thoughts

Now I have your attention! Yes, that's what I said. And I have them, occasionally. It is a residual thing, a result of all the years of heterosexual sin, and rebellion, and not being in the plan of the Lord regarding my sexuality. It is not surprising.

I am not saying that I am attracted to women, per se. It does not dominate my life. Just occasionally, I will find myself having twisted thoughts, or feelings - unwanted thoughts or feelings.

It is nothing that the blood of Christ cannot cure, or is not already curing. I go to the cross, I take communion, I confess, I take the body and blood of Christ. It is already having an effect.

But, I want to tell you what happened when I confessed this to a woman friend - a Christian friend.

She is a friend through my parents - she was at the same church that my parents were going to years ago, and is still there. I met her there, when I was a teen. It is a conservative, Lutheran sect. Anyway, I was helping her find healing from a terrible sickness where she has bleeding internally. She has experienced quite a bit of healing. I was also meeting with her regularly - going out for meals or coffee and we were praying together.

She would send me cards, even on Valentine's day that said "I love you." She loved to send cards.

Then I dropped the bomb. I was telling her many personal and private things, which I now regret. I told her about the thoughts. She talked as if she understood. She had a mature way of expressing herself. But the end result? She has slammed the doors in my face!

She no longer calls me - ever! She never sends a card - ever.

She even sends cards now to my mom and to my parents, and purposely leaves out my name. Spite? I am amazed.

This is the homophobia that people talk about Christians having. It is real!!

I was merely talking about having some thoughts, mere thoughts, occasionally, and not at all about struggling with the temptation to actually get involved with homosexuality.

What if it were that? What if I were struggling with that? I would have such rejection. I now understand the seriousness of the rejection that people with same-sex attraction have experienced. It is so serious. It is so ugly. And now they have taken it to the wrong extreme - and have developed a thing we call "gay pride." It's all wrong!

The people in the ministries "Exodus" and "Outpost" have quite the frontlines battle on their hands. I admire them so much!

Passed away this past year

Two great giants of the faith passed away this past year in their 90's.  One was pastor Erwin Prange, the pastor who helped me so much, bringing me to deliverance from manic episodes, and finally to freedom so many years ago.  He was so powerful in the Lord.

When he died he was almost 94.

The other was Thelma Mjorud, second wife of pastor Herb Mjorud, great man of faith.  Thelma was very strong in the prophetic area and was a dear friend.  She helped me so much with her prophetic gift.  She died at the ripe age of 97.  I talked with her not long ago and her mind was still intact.  

They will both be fondly remembered for all that they did for so many.

What I believe about Healing

I have been listening to some preachers out there, particularly in Albuquerque, New Mexico who are quite well known – Mark Driscoll and Skip Heitzig. I got started doing that because Skip is a host along with Joel Rosenberg on the Epicenter DVD, and I heard him wishing Billy Graham happy birthday, and I knew he was familiar. I thought I would look up his church and listen to his sermons. Then it led to finding Mark who is also in the same city. I like Mark a lot – he is fresh and dynamic. Skip is good too – very knowledgeable and has a good demeanor. Both of them are likeable men, probably because they have such a good demeanor – such a kind and gentle spirit.

I came to sermons that dealt with healing and found that both of them disagree with me about that, which led to thinking about what I actually believe regarding healing.

Skip said that he disagreed with the “Word of Faith” people who say that God MUST do something. He said that he feels God has used sickness to teach him things, and that Paul’s thorn is an example of how God used sickness for a purpose, and we shouldn’t tell God “no” to sickness. God is sovereign and can decide when and if to heal.

Mark Driscoll is pretty much in the same camp as far as what he believes. He says God is God and can do whatever He wants – that’s what you get to do when you are God, he says, you get to do whatever you want. No one can tell Him you must do something.

But it doesn’t line up with what Jesus taught.

It was included in the gospels for our instruction, the story of the woman who had a daughter who was demon possessed who wanted Jesus to heal her daughter, and she was refused, at first, by Jesus. Jesus was testing her, because He knew her and that she would refuse to back down. He even called her a dog, saying that the bread is for the children of Israel and not for the dogs. He knew this woman could handle that. She told him that even the dogs eat the bread that falls from the table. He told her, “great is your faith.”

What did He mean by that? He meant that she had a high expectation of good from God, that God would do what she wanted Him to do, and that she wouldn’t give up until she got from God what she wanted. That was something He commended her for. It is called faith. We make demands of God. It is our relationship with God that has so much to do with whether or not we are healed. Our expectation, our demands on God He hears and He responds to.

God also saw to it that included in the gospels is the story of the man who had an annoying neighbor who kept coming to bother him, until he finally gave in and gave the neighbor what he was asking for. Jesus was saying in that illustration, that God looks for persistence and responds to it. It’s all wrapped up in our relationship with God – the quality of our relationship. What do we believe about God and His goodness?

In Hebrews 11:6 it says “without faith it is impossible to please God. For he who would come to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

God rewards diligent seeking of Him. He rewards demands on Him, because that means we believe He is a good God and He will give us good things.

And what about this thorn? I heard a sermon in Minneapolis where the preacher was saying he thought the thorn in Paul’s flesh was referring to a person who was bothering him. Now please tell me how you can build a theology on something that no one yet knows for sure? No one has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt what the thorn in Paul’s flesh really was.

And if it was a physical affliction, it may have been some minor affliction, but otherwise he was virtually free of all diseases and just had this one annoying thing. I can imagine I might be able to put up with one annoying thing and might conclude that God was allowing me to keep that one. I have a list of about 28 afflictions that I need healing from. I don’t think that God gave me 28 thorns in the flesh!! I am believing for healing from them all. Some of them have improved, some have gone away already.

Skip also said that he believes that since Jesus told His father “nevertheless, not MY will but THINE be done,” we should do the same, and say, “not MY will God,” regarding healing. It’s only if it’s YOUR will. But we know that when Jesus was shrinking back from the death he would die on the cross, it was a temporary feeling of fear, as a man, knowing what he would have to endure. But He did it to pay the price for sin, and to buy our redemption, and our HEALING. We are not supposed to pay the price AGAIN for our sin and suffer affliction, the way Jesus did. Yes, we follow Jesus’ example, but this is taking it too far, because Jesus paid the price for our sin, and that is something that we do not do.

We know that it IS God’s will, and when I pray for people in a healing room, I do not even stop to ask Jesus for healing many times, I go ahead and command the disease to leave in Jesus’ name, because I already know what Jesus would do in that situation. It has a lot to do with my relationship with God.

But the important thing is, it is not godly to have a resentful attitude towards someone who doesn’t believe the same way you do. So, I do not want to get into pride, or resentment towards those who do not have this revelation or walk in this power. I know I must walk in humility and love towards those like Heitzig and Driscoll.

Billy Graham? Thoughts on his 93rd birthday

From a 2007 post

I've always felt there was something lacking, something not quite right about Billy Graham. I'm not saying he hasn't had good evangelistic sermons, or done a good job of reaping a harvest of souls, bringing them to Christ, but maybe it's the way in the Decision magazine, the message stays constantly on getting saved and doesn't progress for those who are already saved to other topics relevant to the life of the believer.

I don't know. There is a place for continuing to give the evangelistic message, but something is definitely wrong, and people don’t identify it because Graham has been totally deified. No one dares touch Billy Graham.

The truth is that Graham is powerful. On his 93^rd birthday yesterday, people were saying he is the greatest preacher ever - that he has reached more people than any preacher in the history of the church! Unfortunately, that much power has allowed him to hurt a lot of people.

I can only use one thing as an example - one thing I found in the Decision mag that my parents receive. He clearly writes something false and misleading and even hurtful. He writes about the battlefield of the mind in the latest November edition ( I originally wrote this in Oct. of 2007). And he mentions the doubtful mind. He quotes only a part of Romans 14:23 and says the Bible says "He who doubts is condemned" referring to doubting about whether or not one actually belongs to Christ. Now this is taking it completely out of context. This is only a portion of the verse, and the word condemned is not meant in the heavy, eternal context that he is using.

The verse is talking about the eating of meat and drinking of wine for those who think it's wrong, and whether it is wrong to offend those who think it is wrong. Prior to the words, "he who doubts is condemned," it says, "happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves." And the verse actually says, "he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith." The word condemned is not talking about hell. Graham is taking a verse out of context. Is it as a scare tactic? Doing this is scary and disturbing. Honestly, reading his work, I don't feel I am reading anointed words from the heart of the Father God. I am disappointed in Graham.

I knew there was no place in the bible where it actually said, "he who doubts is condemned." In James, the first chapter, it says, "he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord." We can have doubt that interferes with receiving from God, such as the unbelief in Jesus' town of Nazareth that he said was so bad that he couldn't do mighty works there.

But you can have doubts enter into your mind and into your life and at the same time, the sum total can be faith, such as Abraham, who went through terrible doubt to the degree that he went ahead and had sex with a woman not his wife in order to get a son (Ishmael) yet he still went on to receive the son of the promise through his wife later on (Isaac.)

But no where does it say that doubt is equal to losing your salvation. Wow! Wow! I was struck by that one!

I remember how he was the representative of Christianity in my early life, and how I gave my life to Christ partly because of him. A good thing, yes? But then, it led to frustration. I kept looking at him and his goodness, and at my own frustrations with sin that I couldn’t overcome, and there was a huge chasm between him and his perfection and my inability to live the Christian life.

He wasn’t making it accessible. He just kept giving the altar call, so, I would repeatedly give my life to Christ, as if this would solve the problems. But it didn’t. It took a long time before Christians came along who started offering teaching for how to overcome the different struggles that a person may have in overcoming sin, and dealing with personality strongholds.

Until then, it seemed like it was only Billy Graham with his fiery sermons preaching salvation. Don’t get me wrong. I always admired him – his integrity, and his message. But something bothered me. I know now that the power of God was compromised in his thinking and teaching. Add to that the anti-Semitism that I learned of later.

There is a serious problem in any Christian’s life who harbors ill will towards Jews. It again shows a lack of understanding in his life. I can honestly say I am thankful to be me and not him, that God has given me the revelation that I have, and that I don’t have the limited understanding that he has shown. And I pray for the people damaged by his bad theology. I think many problems in our country regarding trusting in Christ stem from the misunderstandings that Billy Graham planted in the minds of so many Americans.

That is a serious statement.

Is it possible that Graham’s scare tactics, trying to scare people with threats of hell whenever they doubt that they are saved, has turned people away from God, or turned them towards itching ears – seeking other theologies, and other types of Christianity, opening them up to the erroneous teachings of Joel Osteen and other, even more false preachers?

I read an article in the Dec. 2011 edition on the Fruit of the Spirit that was really good. So, he has written some very good things, don't get me wrong. And the problems I have had with him only require that I forgive him, of course. And someone I told this to said - everyone has some error in them, even Billy Graham.

Looks like Cain needs to brush up on his current affairs before running for president - LOL!