It has been over a month since my last entry. I knew at the time I was to discontinue writing. Today I have a reason why. God had been telling me to learn of His Holy Spirit’s presence in me and His significance. He wanted to take the mystery of Spirit I had and turn it into a much fuller understanding.
About three weeks ago I had gone to see my prayer warrior Lois. At the end of our time she asked me how my worthiness was doing? It caught me off guard and I simply said it was fine until someone asked. This very item has always been a stumbling block for me. I just couldn’t quite jump the hurdle of worthiness to own it knowing the ugliness of all my early years of sexual, physical and verbal abuse. So, Lois said I was to take a post-it note when I got home, write I am worthy on it and place it in my journal so each morning as I started my day I would be reminded of this. As soon as I got home I did this, but I could not just have those three words on it. I needed to write I am worthy because of Jesus in me. That first morning as I journaled I asked Jesus what He wanted me to know from Him for this day as I’ve always done for many years now. His reply was that as long as I continued to question my worthiness I was equally questioning His ability to make me worthy. That made me awaken to something I never wanted to do. I sure didn’t want to question Christ’s ability!
Last weekend I went to a conference in Seattle where I met the author of Every Man a Pure Warrior. He is the one who introduced me to the importance of awakening my spirit through worship music as I did my morning devotions. His talk at the conference challenged me like never before to finally believe once and for all that Christ is completely capable of cleansing any sinfulness done to you or you yourself have done. When I began my journaling two days ago I had to take the original post-it note and throw it away. This time I did just as Lois told me to do–I wrote–I am worthy–on it.
Today God said to write a blog message of this. There is nothing, no nothing that Christ is unwilling to cleanse and make pure for His Gift–The Holy Spirit to now reside in and this includes you and me. I will forever continue to proclaim this truth!
Something truly and genuinely beautiful is taking place for me. This all has to do with the understanding of God’s Holy Spirit and our own spirit. The idea that spirit is life and flesh is the house for our spirit is just what God originally created. He created man (flesh) and breathed the breath of life into him. This breath of life He breathed into you and me is SPIRIT.
I’ve said this so many times, but it is taking on new meaning of late. My dad use to tell me he needed to kill that spirit of mine. Little did he know that these words were words of Satan himself. This has been Satan’s intent for all mankind. He so wants us to lose contact with spirit so that he can keep us in the bondage of flesh. Matthew 26:41 tells us to “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I’ve never really understood the depth of meaning for this verse until most recently. God is awakening me to His fuller measure of understanding for spirit.
All of this makes so much more sense now that I am beginning to more fully understand the huge difference between spirit and flesh. The only reason flesh is alive is because of spirit. Flesh is weak, it dies. Spirit is eternal and always will be. Satan tries his best to keep us in our flesh. God is Spirit and He has never seen the sins I’ve done or those done to me since I asked Jesus into my life. Only I have continued to see them. Today I am so free of this old bondage. I can and will live in freedom because of this wonderful understanding of SPIRIT!
I just had to come back to my written journal in this blog recording what has been happening of late. First and foremost, I am a great grandpa! My first great grandchild was born on July 5th. She is a precious little angel named Haven Ann. Her mom is Faith and her dad is Christian. So, Christian and Faith came together and created Haven. There is some kind of spiritual picture here!
For the first time in three years of our counseling ministry I’ve had to delay starting intakes who are seeking help. This greatly troubled me but there just were no openings. In addition to this, one of the counselors had to step aside for a period of time due to his health. A week ago another one of the counselors told me she would be stepping aside the end of August to begin a new ministry God is leading her into. I wasn’t sure what God had to do with all of this, but it sure has left me with some question marks. I’ve talked to our pastor who oversees this ministry for his guidance which at this time is to pray.
This morning my devotional time has reminded that I am to do just what God has asked me to do all along–offer counsel to those I have coming. I can fret all I want about some of this, but He wants me to trust Him. I do trust Him, but, for a moment I needed this reminder.
I love how God works and how He comes along side and brings Light into a dark or dimly lit room. The Light doesn’t illuminate what I was wanting, but it sure illuminated what He wanted me to see–HIM–ALMIGHTY GOD!
Well, I said I might be adding entries along the way and today is one of them. The night before my big day our family all got together for the afternoon/evening. Lots of fun, laughter and joy. Last night Kathy had arranged for a couple of close friends to be here. It was a full counseling day so I didn’t get home until close to 6:00 pm. I BBQ’d steaks Kathy had ready and we enjoyed a nice evening which included much reflection.
This morning I am just filled with emotions of gratitude–quite melancholy. As a little boy I was told so many times by dad that he needed to kill this spirit of mine. I never knew what that meant at the time. In recent years I’ve come to know my spirit and God’s Holy Spirit. Growing them within me so they are my One Spirit has become my daily prayer of surrender. That little boy wanted to please his dad so much but never could find the formula for doing so. Now I know that this wasn’t so much about me as it was about my dad. He had his own issues. Today though, I get to live to please my Heavenly Father who not only gives us The Holy Spirit, He too is SPIRIT. This spirit of mine is alive and joined with God’s Holy Spirit will last for eternity. WOW, what a blessing GOD IS!
This journey of mine is about to be a quarter of a century. Tomorrow I turn 75. It was 9 years ago on March 14th that I wrote the first entry for this blog. I had published the book, The Journey From Error to Heir, the previous year with it coming out in August of 2015. After several months I was prompted to write this blog as I was finding my journey sure didn’t end just because the book was finished. God had much He was still doing to bring me closer to Him, particularly in the area of knowing/trusting Him fully.
The last section of my book was titled, Finding Freedom. Today, if I were to write a new section, it would be called Living in Freedom. I have found that Freedom is never found until one BELIEVES. I have truly found freedom in Christ like I never thought possible as I look back at my first 60 years. Even after starting Celebrate Recovery almost 18 years ago, freedom was still being “found”. Once I learned to believe, there it was, right in front of me, waiting for me to welcome it and embrace it–believing! Today, living in it is such a continuous GIFT.
I will not be continuing this daily blog after today. I’m not sure what I will be doing with it. I may have entries here and there. I just know that the daily ones are no longer a nudge from God for me. I’ve loved writing these. It has done so much more for me personally. Somehow, writing them each morning has helped to solidify for me what scripture has promised over and over! God bless all of you readers. God has purpose and meaning for each one of us! His Works never end in reaching His kids!
As June is wrapping up I have learned to put worship music to play as I have my devotional time with God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit. Right now I am hearing “It Is Finished”. I AM FREE! It is resounding in singing words and music. The battle is over and I am no longer the prisoner who didn’t know the battle had been won for I am well aware of my own battle now being won.
For way too many years I fought this battle on my own not wanting the battle to be known. I thought I had so much to lose if people knew. Oh, but how much this was a lie only Satan believed and planted in me. Once I began to take steps into this lie did I find such glorious freedom from it. I never lost a single friend from this becoming known, but I gained a ministry full of friends I’d never know otherwise. Best of all, I found a Savior and Lord for my time on earth. I only knew Jesus before as my Savior providing a means to heaven upon death. There is a life of beauty right here on earth I have found. It not only includes my Savior and Lord, but His GREAT GIFT–THE HOLY SPIRIT! And then, to find a FATHER who loved me like I never knew possible!
Oh my word, what a life God has for each one of us. All we have to do is take that first step towards Him believing with the faith of a mustard seed.
“Holy Are You Lord” is playing in the background as I begin to write today’s entry. It just makes me joyous all through my system for HOLY is our LORD! What an honor we have to serve Him, obey Him, receive the blessings He bestows. Knowing all of this, after so many years of questioning Him, wanting to trust Him but seemingly being overlooked in so doing, I just cannot find words to tell how much my heart rejoices. I love this HOLY LORD named JESUS! I choose to live fully for HIM!
A young man in his late teens is coming for counsel. He started only a few weeks ago. He made a statement that keeps stirring in my mind. He said that his drive to quit using porn was because his parents had both told him it was wrong to do this. He then said that he wanted to find his own reason/s for quitting. He didn’t want to live his life with boundaries set by his parents. He wanted to have his own that he created for himself. He was struggling to find any good reason to quit other than what his parents told him. When I asked what he knew that God’s Word with this topic, he quoted scripture about lust and sexual purity. I asked if these had any influence on his thinking? Is it possible he is simply trying to justify his own flesh desires? He said he was going to think about all of this.
It was good to hear the voice of a developing mind. One that is growing now into its own. In hearing him, I was reminded so well of those years for myself. This topic for me was so influenced by homosexual use of me that I mostly thought of sex as abuse and what was I suppose to do with it from a “Godly standpoint”? Those years are all behind me now, but this young man is just entering into this time in his life. Learning to listen and respond to that voice of intuition–God’s Holy Spirit was going to be a new discipline to learn and respect. In so doing, this will replace the voice of mom and dad’s voiced boundaries. He can trust this Voice of God within him.
Hearing God’s Voice and knowing it from any other voice is truly a blessing God gives to each one of us.
This morning’s devotional message centered around our need to praise God even in our times of torment. It goes on to talk about the impact or praise has on the “spiritual realm”. I was stricken by this message bringing out the significance of the spiritual realm. I’ve written in several blog entries about my desire to learn and believe a good deal more about the spirit world. The fact that God is Spirit, He gives us the Holy Spirit and Christ lives in this spiritual realm upon His resurrection as Spirit, makes this realm critically important for us. The other critical component to this is that Satan and all his minions are spirit.
Our earthly realm is occupied with this spiritual realm, but heaven is only occupied with the purity of this realm–sin doesn’t exist there as it does here on earth. It is in this spiritual realm that our battles are fought and won. The devotional message said we barely see this realm while on earth, so believing it is so important. I Corinthians 13:12 says, “we see darkly” while here on earth. We are so dominated by our flesh. FAITH enters this realm for us as a critical component.
The last piece of this for me is found in the word “realm”. The first four letters spell REAL. I struggled for most of my life wanting to believe all of this was real for me. These past 10+ years of my life have proven over and over for me the REAL in spiritual realm and how God through Jesus has fought these battles for me and WON! How much I love Him for all of this and His patience in helping me come to this point of believing in my life today.
I don’t know, well I do know, that when we get to the age I am things we don’t like to admit begin to happen (quite frequently). Things like, “where did I put that?’, “I said what?”, “you gave that to me?”, “I don’t recall saying that.” This list could go on for a long time but I’m finding that I spend time almost daily addressing one or more of these. God assures me that He is with me just as He has always been. I guess He just smiles as I address these!
It doesn’t matter how much I flounder at times, God still seems to work through them to get done what He wants each day to contain. I love living for Him. I think this must be why He created humor so we can laugh about all of this rather than cry! GOD IS GOOD!
Earnie Lewis 