Seeing As God Sees

Revelation 19:7 “… for the marriage of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” Elaine and I will be facilitating Love After Marriage again on Wednesday, and this morning I watched this week’s video to prepare. It’s about seeing your spouse as God sees him/her. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Most of us start out seeing our spouses that way, but the enemy wants more than anything to destroy intimacy and oneness and attacks hard with all sorts of lies. Over time many of us lose that sense of wonder, but God wants to restore that for all marriages. But furthermore, the reality is that we’ve been designed for this type of oneness not just with our spouses, but with everyone around us. That is why the church is described as “the bride of Christ.” If we see people as God sees them, most of our relational problems will disappear. Over the weekend, my friend shared with me that he was having some problems with one of his in-laws. I asked him to pray and ask God what was coming against him in this relationship. “I get the word evil. I guess it’s that I believe she’s evil because she treated me the way she did.” So I asked him to ask God how He sees her. “Shucks. God sees her as good. She’s precious and loved by God.” I replied “ok well if that’s the case, then are you ok to nail this lie that she is evil to the cross?” He nodded and we went through the Skidoo exercise I wrote about on Friday. I’m really excited to see breakthrough in this area of my friend’s life ahead. Lord thank you for loving us as your bride. Help us to love others as you loved the church, and gave yourself up for her. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

I'd Die For You

John 12:24 “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Yesterday I was watching Pastor Danny Silk’s Leadership 101 online class about “Covenant Purpose.” In old testament times, a covenant was a binding agreement that required death. To seal a covenant, two people would cut an animal in half and walk through it, signifying that “I am willing to pass through death with you.”

The problem these days is that people enter into a covenant relationship without that commitment. Usually, the attitude is more like “I’ll sacrifice for you, but only if you sacrifice for me first” or “I definitely will help you but only if it doesn’t inconvenience me too much.” At this point Pastor Danny looked straight at the camera and asked “who would you die for? And who would die for you?”

With my dad’s recent diagnosis, Elaine suggested that I might need to donate part of my liver at some point for him. Without hesitation, I replied, “of course I’d do that.” I would gladly risk my life for his. After some reflection this morning, I can honestly say I’d do the same for people in my church community, and I think quite a number would do the same for me. Pastor Danny talked about how coming into that kind of community at Bethel Church has been totally transformational for him, and I can say the same has been true for me.

Lord, thank you for modeling what true covenant means. We are made in your image and designed to live in covenant with those around us. I know that over time you desire for me to expand this expression to a wider set of people, to be willing to die for more of your children. I only want what you want. Please give me the strength to live more like Jesus. In your son’s name, Amen.

1-2-3 Skidoo

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

We had a great session of Love After Marriage last night. After watching a video that explained the concept of taking every thought captive, Elaine and I shared some of our experiences using the exercise they taught about. It’s called 1-2-3 Skidoo, and while we learned many powerful tools at LAM, this is the one we used most frequently. This morning, I noticed myself thinking “I’m feeling tired and unproductive” and realized it was a spirit of weariness coming against me. So I skidooed it and I immediately felt better. I thought I’d share the exercise with you today. First, ask Holy Spirit what is one thing (could be a thought or a spirit) coming against you. Then just repeat these three steps. I’ve inserted what I called out today.

1. I nail [the spirit of weariness] to the cross. 2. I break all agreements that I’ve made with [the spirit of weariness], known or unknown. I repent of joining with [the spirit of weariness]. 3. I ask you, Father, to send [the spirit of weariness] away from me. Father, what do you want to give me in place of [the spirit of weariness] ?

God is a God of restoration, and He will replace whatever is coming against you with something amazing. Today He replaced weariness with rest, peace, and a supernatural state of flow. Lord, thank you for giving us relationship. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but when we take every thought captive, when we identify sin before coming into agreement with it, we can nail it to the cross. Your sacrifice far exceeds the power of any struggles we may encounter, and I declare that you have already won the battle. In Jesus’ name, Amen.