So how was I limiting God?

Let me discuss all the limitations I put on God.  Some of them I only got revelation on when I listened to the teaching of An.drew Wom.mack (see previous 3 posts) but some of it I learnt a while ago already from other sources.  If you are a regular reader of my blog since the start you will recognize some of the older revelations as they have been mentioned before.  At that stage I didn’t realize consciously that I was limiting God, I just learnt that I could influence things by changing my attitude, or my behaviour.

The first big thing I did wrong was by feeling that I will never get pregnant.  Not naturally or with the help of any FS.   Especially when the IVF’s were are failing.  I didn’t consciously think – I will not get pregnant, I was always hopeful, but those thoughts crept into my mind often.  I remember when I went to my first FS – the sister there was measuring my height and weight, taking my blood pressure, etc and she said, “don’t worry you will get your baby.”  The first thought that jumped into my head was, “no, it will not happen.”  I tried to change that thought off course, one never wants to think it, but I was actually a bit upset after she said it, and I couldn’t figure out why.  Let me tell you we weren’t even trying for a baby very long by then.  Not even a year, so to think those thoughts were totally ridiculous. 

Later I would think very often, “I am infertile and the only way I would get pregnant is with IVF.”  Why?  I don’t know.  I thought it was intuition or something like that, but now I recognize it as a lie from the devil.  Now I see that the way we think limits God.  If I think I cannot get pregnant, then I will not get pregnant, because my thinking limits God.

Thinking and what we believe are closely related.  What started out as thoughts soon changed into believing I could not get pregnant, especially after a few years passed.  The longer it took the more I believed.  Eventually I realized my mistake when I read the book “Super.natural Child.birth” by Jac.kie Mi.ze.  That was just before I had my last IVF.  I was able to believe that I could get pregnant, but only with the help of doctors and with specific medication like Intralipid therapy.  It worked – I did get pregnant, but unfortunately I miscarried. 

After my miscarriage I had to learn that I must believe that I can get pregnant, but without the help of doctors or medication.  It helped a lot to learn about God, who He is, what His will is and what Jesus has done for us.  In the mean time Shumi also got sick and I had to learn to believe that he will be healed from cancer.  It helped off course to listen to teachings like the Div.ine Healing Tech.nician from Cur.ry Bla.ke.

Even though I believed there were times of doubt and unbelief.  Times when things didn’t seem to be working, then I had thoughts of, “this is never going to work, or what if it doesn’t work?”  I must say in hindsight I can see that every now and then when things were going well, something might happen that would cause us to take a few steps back again and usually it was when I doubted, or was in unbelief.  I was still strongly moved by what I saw or heard, and the times when things seemed bad, I would waiver.  In those times I was tying God’s hands again until I was able to get some message of hope or faith, and then things would get better again.

In the beginning I was limiting God a lot with fear, fear of never having children or fear of Shumi dying.  I realized it was wrong, and even wrote a post about fear, but I didn’t realize exactly what else I was fearful about.  Last week I had a dream, or rather almost a nightmare, where I woke up in the early hours of the morning and suddenly I saw clearly what some of my other fears are. 

Fear of success:  I realized that if I get pregnant and Shumi is totally healed, then this supernatural healing is a huge responsibility.  I would have to help every single person I know, I get into contact with and actually go out and seek others to lay hands on them and get them healed, because if I don’t then it would be my fault if they are in pain, don’t get healed or even die. 

Fear of failure:  Not only a fear of not having children or that Shumi might die, but also that if I do try to help others and I fail, they might get upset with me, or worse they might not believe in God.  A fear that I could actually cause other people to not get saved, or to believe that God is not real. 

Fear of rejection and criticism:  This one is especially hard and I am mostly talking about people I care about.  Like our friends and family and our church.  I am fully aware that most people don’t believe in this stuff, and that they might think I lost my marbles.  I’m also scared they would want nothing to do with me.  Many preachers I have listened to have said that they were rejected by their church, so I know that is a real possibility.  I’m not worried so much about what strangers think of me, or whether they reject me. 

Fear of the unknown:  If I do get over all the other fears and I am successful then I guess I’ll have to change my life completely and that unknown factor is scary.  I’m starting to realize that God might have an amazing plan for my life, which I never would have thought possible, but that would definitely put me out of my comfort zone.  It will take a lot of courage to be obedient to follow God’s leading on this, but I am in a situation where I’m basically at rock bottom.  I’m not willing to give up my dream of having children or letting Shumi go, so I guess that means study, study, study God’s Word and learn as much as I can, and God is also leading me to start to lay hands on others (here comes fear of rejection again!)

The last thing that I learnt about limiting God is that I have to start seeing myself pregnant and to start seeing Shumi completely healed.  That was something I could never do, even after my pregnancy last year.  I would hope that I would get pregnant or that Shumi get’s healed, but I couldn’t see it.  So I’m taking time out every day to imagine these things. 

Some of these things are in the past.  I have learnt and dealt with it and it’s not a problem anymore.  Some things I think are sorted out but every now and then I have to deal with it again, and others I still have to sort out.  But I am working on it, and by God’s grace, I’m sure I’ll be able to conquer it soon.

Read Full Post »

Limiting God (Part 2)

The previous post was getting too long so I’ll continue with An.drew Wom.mack’s teaching Don’t limit God. 

“Fear limits God:

There is a natural resistance towards the unknown, a natural resistance towards change.   Most people know that there is more than what they are experiencing, they are praying for change but they don’t want to do anything differently.  They are afraid to do something different.  That’s the definition of insanity to look for change and yet to do the same thing over and over, and to expect different results.  I’m telling you if you want to take the limits off God you are going to learn to deal with fear, because it’s risky serving God.  People are just afraid to do something and yet they aren’t enjoying where they are.

2 Kings 7:3-10 (NIV):  “³ Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, Why stay here until we die?  ⁴ If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’— the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.  ⁵ At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, ⁶ for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!  ⁷ So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.  ⁸ The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. ⁹ Then they said to each other, We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.   ¹⁰ So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there— not a sound of anyone— only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.”

This was when the northern 10 Kingdoms were surrounded by the Arameans, and they tried to starve them out, they blockaded the city and there was starvation.  In the midst of this there were 4 lepers outside the city gate and they asked themselves, “Why stay here until we die?”  Man, I like that!  They said, “We’ve got to do something, if we don’t do anything we are going to die.”  There are some of you that know that if something doesn’t change, you aren’t going to make it.  There is not a hope of you living a victorious, joyful, fulfilled complete life.  You know that your life right now is not the way that it’s supposed to be and yet you are afraid to try anything different.    That’s what these lepers said.  These 4 lepers decided that they could just as well go out of the city, what was the worst thing that could happen?  They could die, but they were dying already!  They argued that they at least have a chance of being spared if they go to the camp of the Arameans.  I love that reasoning, I love it!

It’s the same with the disciples when they were in the boat and drowning in the storm.  Jesus came walking on the very thing that was killing everybody else.  They were drowning yet everybody said, “Peter don’t get out of the boat!”  What’s the deal?  There was as much water in the boat as there was outside, they were going down if they stayed where they were and I can guarantee you all those guys in the boat were criticizing him, “you’re foolish to get out of the boat!”  But he was going to drown if he stayed in it.  There was very little difference between being in the boat and out of the boat.  The boat was going down it was the smartest thing he ever did to get out of the boat!  You know you can’t walk on water if you don’t get out of the boat!

There are some of you who want to see miraculous things happen in your life, and yet you are so afraid of doing anything that put you in a position where you need a miracle!  You’re playing it too safe. You don’t ever want there to be a bump in the road and yet you want a great testimony.  You have to have a test before you get the mony.  If you want a testimony you are going to have to go through some things, you’re going to have to get out of what is easy.

Here are some examples of fear that can limit God: fear of people, fear of man, fear of failure, fear of success and fear of persecution.

Unbelief limits God:

This is related to fear, because fear is unbelief or unbelief is fear.  There are so many scriptures on this topic. I don’t even know where to start. 

Matthew 21:22 (NIV):  “²² If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” 

Mark 11:23 (NIV):  “²³ I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.”

If you doubt God then you are going to limit what God can do in your life, and a lot of people don’t recognize this but brothers and sisters we live in a culture that is full of doubt.  We are riddled with unbelief, we are baptized in unbelief and most churches are full of unbelief.  I’m not against the church, I’m for the church, but what I’m saying is that there is a tremendous amount of fear, doubt and unbelief.  If Jesus was to come into our current religious setting today I’d guarantee you He would turn everything upside down.  He wouldn’t last 3 and half years in our religious culture – we would kill Him sooner.  We are riddled with unbelief.

Matthew 17:14-23 (NIV):  “¹⁴ When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him.  ¹⁵ Lord, have mercy on my son, he said. He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.  ¹⁶ I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.  ¹⁷ O unbelieving and perverse generation, Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.  ¹⁸ Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.  ¹⁹ Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, Why couldn’t we drive it out?  ^20-21 He replied, Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Let me say this, today if most people went to a church and said my son has seizures and he falls and he hurts himself and he falls into the fire and he foams at the mouth, how would the average pastor respond to that?  The average pastor would say, “Well what do the doctors say?  Is he on medication?  What treatment?  Well you need to see a specialist, let me pray that God will bless the doctors.”  He will ask God to use the doctors and give them wisdom, that’s the way that most pastors would respond to that. 

The church hasn’t accepted responsibility for meeting the needs of people and so today the average person would say were supposed to be compassionate, were supposed to show sympathy, were supposed to say, “God bless you, I’m going to pray for you, go see the doctor, and as you go off I’ll be praying and interceding for you…”

How did Jesus respond?  He said, “O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you?  How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”  Jesus was not politically correct.  You know what the most people would preach today is that Jesus should have said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left you by yourselves, this is too much for you, I should have been here, it’s my fault, don’t feel bad, don’t feel bad about yourself, don’t let any guild or condemnation come.”  That’s the way people would approach it today, Jesus said, “O unbelieving and perverse generation!  What’s wrong with you!  I’m not going to be here forever, I’m trying to get you guys to where you can do this!”

Brothers and sisters the church is supposed to be the first line of defense against poverty, against sickness, against depression, against all of these things and the church is not fulfilling its requirements and if Jesus was to show up today, I believe I’m speaking accurately that the Lord would say that we are a faithless and perverse generation.  We live in a culture of unbelief and even the faith churches, even the spirit filled churches to a very large degree aren’t meeting the needs.  Off course the vast majority of the body of Christ doesn’t even believe that God does those things today, but among those that believe that it can happen they have no handle on whether it will happen or not.  I tell you this is not the way that God meant it to be.  I don’t know any way to express these things without causing some unrest among people.  You know before we can fix the problem we have to admit that this is not the way that the Lord meant for it to be. 

We live in a culture of unbelief, outside of the body of Christ there is terrible unbelief, demonic oppression, there is a spirit of Antichrist working, if you don’t realize it we are living in a hostile environment.  Christians are about the only group that it is politically correct to discriminate against. 

The Lord’s not pleased with the church and where we stand today and our inability to represent Him properly and I’m including myself in that.  I’m not doing everything the way that I should, but Praise God, I haven’t arrived, but I’ve left.  I’m still moving in that direction and it’s a goal of mine to see a 100% of the people set free.”

Read Full Post »

Doubts and unbelief:

I have mentioned guilt and condemnation in the last few posts of mine.  It’s been something that I have been struggling with.  So as always, that is what you are going to hear about, whatever has been on my mind lately. Now you might wonder what that has to do with the title of this post.  Trust me they are related, keep on reading and you will soon see the connection. 

I have mentioned that DH was away – for a whole week, so on Saturday I didn’t really have much to do so I decided to rent the DVD of the Pas.sion of the Chr.ist.  I know it’s a movie that’s been out a long time already, but we have never seen it.  Why?  I thought that I knew and appreciated the big sacrifice Jesus made for us and as I cannot really watch any medical TV series, because I cannot stand the sight of blood and guts, I thought it best not to watch the movie.  But for some reason on Friday I thought that I need to see for myself graphically how terrible the suffering of Jesus was.  As I was alone at home I could watch it without feeling self conscious about crying, because I knew I was going to cry a lot.

The movie starts in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was praying moments before Judas would betray him and he would be arrested.  The devil is whispering things to Him.  Things like:  “Do you really believe that one man can bear the full burden of sin?”, and “No one man can carry this burden, I tell you, it’s far too heavy.  Saving their souls is too costly,” etc.  What did Jesus do?  He continued in prayer, in anguish, but he continued and ignored the devil. He asked for help from the Father.  There is this snake that comes from under the robe of the devil and slithers over to Jesus.  I think they wanted to symbolize the temptation, but when Jesus gets up from His knees he crushes that snake under His foot. 

I got such a revelation from watching this!  It sounded just like the stuff that goes through my mind a lot.  (I know I cannot compare my situation to that one of Jesus, but I’m talking about those same type of thoughts) “You are crazy to think that Shumi will be healed!  Look at him!  Why do you think you will be healed and get pregnant naturally?  Why would things change now?  Stop wasting time and go see your FS – maybe he has some ideas to help you.”  On and on, and I realized that although those things go through my mind, I don’t have to accept them.  It becomes doubt only when I act on it.  If I turn to God just like Jesus did, it is not a sin!  I don’t have to feel guilty!  I don’t have to be condemned!  It’s not me that thinks those thoughts; it’s the devil trying to tempt me! 

Now today I read again from “The batt.lefie.ld of the mi.nd and Joy.ce Me.yer explains the terms doubt and unbelief so nicely, so I want to share that with you.

“… O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Matthew 14:31

“And He marvelled because of their unbelief…”  Mark 6:6

“We usually talk about doubt and unbelief together as if they are one and the same.  Actually although they can be connected, the two are very different things.

Vine’s An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words partially defines doubt in the verb form as “… to stand in two ways … implying uncertainty which way to take,… said of believers who’s faith is small… being anxious, through a distracted state of mind, of wavering between hope and fear…”

The same dictionary notes that one of the two Greek words translated as unbelief “is always rendered ‘disobedience’ in the R.V” (the Revised Version of the King James translation.)

As we look at these two powerful tools of the enemy, we see that doubt causes a person to waver between two opinions, whereas unbelief leads to disobedience. 

I think it’s going to be helpful to be able to recognize exactly what the devil is trying to attack us with.  Are we dealing with doubt or unbelief?

Doubt

“… How long will you halt and limp between two opinions?…”  1 Kings 18:21

I heard a story that will shed some light on doubt. 

There was a man who was sick and who was confessing the Word over his body, quoting healing Scriptures and believing for his healing to manifest.  While doing so, he was intermittently attacked with thoughts of doubt.

After he had one through a hard time and was beginning to get discouraged, God opened his eyes to the spirit world.  This is what he saw:  a demon speaking lies to him, telling him that he was not going to get healed and that confessing the Word was not going to work.  But he also saw that each time he confessed the Word, light would come out of his mouth like a sword, and the demon would cower and fall backward.

As God showed him this vision, the man then understood why it was so important to keep speaking the word.  He saw that he did have faith, which is why the demon was attacking him with doubt.

Doubt is not something that God puts in us.  The Bible says that God gives every man a “… measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).  God has placed faith in our heart, but the devil tries to negate our faith by attacking us with doubt.

Doubt comes in the form of thoughts that are in opposition to the word of God.  This is why it’s so important for us to know the word of God.  If we know the word, then we can recognize when the devil is lying to us.  Be assured that he lies to us in order to steal what Jesus purchased for us through his death and resurrection.

Doubt and Unbelief

“¹⁸ Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, So shall your offspring be.  ¹⁹ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead— since he was about a hundred years old— and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.  ²⁰ Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”  Romans 4:18-21

When I am in a battle, knowing that God has promised and yet being attacked with doubt and unbelief, I like to read or meditate on this passage.

Abraham had been given a promise by God that He would cause him to have an heir from his own body.   Many years had come and gone and still there was no child as a result of Abraham and Sarah’s relationship.  Abraham was still standing in faith, believing what God had said would come to pass.  As he stood, he was being attacked with thoughts of doubt, and the spirit of unbelief was pressing him to disobey God.

Disobedience in a situation like this can simply be to give up when God is prompting us to press on.  Disobedience is disregarding the voice of the Lord, or whatever God is speaking to us personally, not just transgressing the Ten Commandments.

Abraham continued to be steadfast.  He kept praising and giving glory to God.  The Bible states that as he did so, he grew strong in faith.

You see, when God tells us something or asks us to do something, the faith to believe it or to do it comes with the Word from God.  It would be ridiculous for God to expect us to do something and not give us the ability to believe that we can do it.  Satan knows how dangerous we will be with a heart full of faith, so he attacks us with doubt and unbelief.

It’s not that we don’t have faith, it’s just that Satan is trying to destroy our faith through lies.

Faith is a product of the spirit; it’s a spiritual force.  The enemy doesn’t want you and me to get our mind in agreement with our spirit.  He knows that if God places faith in us to do a thing and we get positive and start to consistently believing that we can actually do it, then we will do considerable damage to his kingdom.”

Read Full Post »