I do not usually comment on 'prophecy' but this appeared on my Facebook today.

"Many are being deceived and it is VERY subtle. We are seeing the layers of separation and the Lord is dividing apart the marrow from the bone in this hour. The enemy comes as an angel of light and 'looks' like the real thing - 'looks' like a 'good' thing and even 'looks' successful. Many of you are basing your discernment on things like something 'looking' good and this is seeing it from a place of the flesh and this is where you can be deceived - we must discern from a place of the Spirit - IN THE SPIRIT. So True Prophets dream and have visions? Yes, do not run out and think now that everyone who dreams and has visions are false. We must learn true discernment...

There is a lot of 'I dreamed this and I had a vision of this' and there is NO MESSAGE OF REPENTANCE. GOD WANTS OUR HEARTS!!! He is FED UP with the IDOL GAMES - no more playing church - He is drawing a line in the sand - it is time to choose whom we will serve - THE TIME IS SHORT and JUDGEMENT IS COMING!!! IF we are not HIS (totally controlled by Him, His voice for today) then we are of the world period!!!

It is time to stop coming into agreement with the false prophets! Again, they have an appearance of being true, BUT it is all about their great visions and dreams etc. but NO MESSAGE OF REPENTANCE!!! Be vigilant and gain understanding of how to rightly or righteously discern..."

The messages like this continued with more of the same:

"WE ARE TO STOP LISTENING TO THE FALSE PROPHETS AND COME OUT OF AGREEMENT WITH THEM!!!!! Read the whole chapter of Jeremiah 29, God speaks of this very thing in this chapter - THIS HAS BEEN WHY MANY OF THE BLESSINGS WE THOUGHT SHOULD BE COMING ARE NOT COMING YET"

I had a concern about all this and posted as follows:

1.  A very scary and very general warning so that those who tend to fear will become more fearful, those who tend to guilt will come under guilt and those stuck in judgmental Christianity will be confirmed in being judgmentalism. I would prefer a word that said that more of God's goodness, mercy, and loving-kindness is coming because this is God's essential (ESSENTIAL or primary) nature, NOT judge.

Response from other posters: When I read this prophecy, there was no condemnation, no guilt, shame, judgmentalism ... Just a confirmation of His Word spoken recently to my spirit in His gentle loving way.

I continued with this comment:

2.  Here is what creates anxiety, nervousness and fear - something that makes a big difference (great harm or great good) and difficulty knowing which choice is right or wrong. That this makes a big difference is comments like: " Here is what looks like this could be very important "He is FED UP with the IDOL GAMES - no more playing church - He is drawing a line in the sand - it is time to choose whom we will serve - THE TIME IS SHORT and JUDGEMENT IS COMING!!!" Here is an example suggesting we will find it difficult to know the difference: "The enemy comes as an angel of light and 'looks' like the real thing."

Wendy says "Many are being deceived and it is VERY subtle." In other words those who are not 'true' prophets of not really led by the Spirit will not discern. So how is the ordinary Christian not to get afraid by such a message? How are we to know that we are not being deceived by this VERY subtle deception?

Sometimes truth is puzzling, even paradoxical.  Hebrews says we are to strive to enter the rest.  That seems a little strange.  Similarly Wendy is advocating, exhorting that we be lead by the Spirit and live in grace.  The ONLY way that God will get ALL the Glory is IF we are Spirit led."  That is another strange truth - yes grace, yes gift, yes lead by the Spirit, but by pushing for grace and being Spirit led, she almost encourages us to try to do it as a carnal work of our flesh.  We strive to be lead by the Spirit and we strive to live by grace and in our striving, block grace and the Spirit.

The Shield of Heart Readiness

 Paul’s writes in Ephesians 6:18: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

Loren Sandford writes:

I am burdened with concern right now for the body of Christ. The days are urgent and time is limited. We need to be ready, alive and alert to the Spirit. People around us are hurting, the world rushes toward coming catastrophes, and yet I see too many believers who should know better falling into self-centered emotional turmoil, moral compromise and inconsistency at just the time when we need to be at our finest and most focused. Lives are at stake.

In these days, if we take our eyes off of our Savior for even an instant, the enemy of our soul will access our vulnerabilities and weaknesses and use them to drag us down. We will be scattered from one another, isolated and disconnected at a time when our relationships need to be firm and strong.
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/483893/32967c78b2/1604001848/a1ffaf93ef/

Being 'ready to respond' 

Standing in readiness is needed for protection and victory in times of potential physical or emotional wounding.

Agnes Sanford taught that there is a brief instant after a potential scalding, wounding, bruising when your instantaneous response determines the outcome.  So a person just after hearing this teaching scalds themselves but their instantaneous response is faith in Jesus, the cross and healing.  The outcome is a healing  claimed and no damage is done.

I now suspect the same of people hating, cursing and doing evil to us.  There must be an instant when our heart response is either like Jesus said - love, bless, pray for and do good or otherwise.  If we respond to hate with hate, to curse with animosity, to evil with the desire for revenge, then the curse will alight, the hate will harm us deeply.

However, if the heart readiness is to love - that is the 'armor we put on in the morning' - then God's shields are up, the curse does not alight, the hate hurts but does not penetrate.  We walk in victory of praise, joy and patience.

This, then is the Shield of Heart Readiness - a heart prepared with an instantaneous godly response.  When the heart is prepared this is the automatic response that occurs before you have time to think.  That is how prepared, how heart-ready, we must be.  The instantaneous response must be automatic.  Jesus' thinking must be deeply and fully ingrained in our life.  Only in that is there safety.

Therefore, everyday 'head knowledge' belief does not provide safety.  This must be habit.  It must be fully affirmed by head and heart.  Then our shields are up.  'Our shields' are the one God puts up if and when our heart is aligned with His.

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Oops! There we go trying to be good again.

It slip in so easily and runs by so quickly - the language of 'being good.'  Take this statement.

“We are called to make statements about such things after we eliminate hypocrisy in these areas of our own lives. We, as Christians, are called to (1) live righteously, and (2) speak out about unrighteousness.”

Some things we say sound so good and right, but, when seen in light of the essential wisdom of Jesus, are quite wrong and off base.

Requiring yourself or others to change our own lives effectively eliminates the essential wisdom of Jesus. Jesus and Paul know that we cannot be good.

Essentially no man is good.  Essentially no man (Christians included) can make themselves good.

The 'small' and easily ignored language of being good without Christ is a subtle sin and theological error that can destroy the church.

We can bask in God’s love and let his warm loving heart melt ours and let his Holy Spirit unite with ours and let his truth replace carnal beliefs in our hearts.
Essentially it is Christ in us that is our hope of glory and nothing but Christ in us will do.

Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees!

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Only Church effective at heart change can survive this purge

Since media overwhelms family, church, school in giving values and beliefs, Christianity must become more effective in heart change, life transformation and emotional inner healing to survive this influence.  How we do church must go deeper based on the cutting edge understanding of the tools of inner healing.

Without effective heart change transformed Christians will become extinct.  Here is David Platt's observations.

Published on May 6, 2013

David Platt discusses what it looks like to be a Christian today.

He says, "We live in a day where is means almost nothing to be a Christian. According to research almost 4 out of every 5 Americans identify themselves as Christians...But in this group of self proclaimed Christians, less than half of them are involved in church on a weekly basis. Less than half of them believe the Bible is true. An overwhelming majority of them don't have a biblical view of the world around them. So researchers went even deeper then to distinguish men and women who are 'born again Christians,' as if there's any other kind of Christian. But these are people who say they've made a personal commitment to Jesus, they believe they'll go to heaven, because they've accepted Jesus as their savior. And according to research nearly half of Americans are 'born again Christians.' But you look at this group of 'born again Christians' and researchers found that their beliefs and lifestyles and virtually indistinguishable from the world around them. Many 'born again Christians' believe their works can earn them a place in heaven. Others think that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. Some believe that Jesus sinned while He was on Earth. And an ever increasing number of 'born again Christians' just describe themselves as marginally committed to Jesus. So people you can use data like this to conclude that Christians are really not that different from the rest of the world. But I don't think that interpretation of that research is accurate. I think the one thing that's abundantly clear from those statistics is that there are a whole lot of people in our country who think that they are Christians, but they are not. There are scores of people—here and around the world who culturally distinguish themselves as Christians and biblically are not followers of Christ." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmb2H76ohXE

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

A prayer for those in despair

I do pray that person in despair will have a revelation by the Holy Spirit of your goodness.  You told Moses of you faithful love and mercy and we pray that you would show this to this person as well.  Grant her to know you in your goodness.

Person in despair, your part is to open up to gratitude and thankfulness for who God is and what he does each day in you life.  This allows you to receive more good things and be nurtured with love and comfort deep in your inner being.

The food is there.  Be like a little bird wanting to be fed and open your mouth to receive.

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Why do I live in a time such as this? (a psalm)

Well might I wish not to live in a time such as this - when the center cannot hold.
But, be brave, oh my soul, stand true to what you know.
Psalm Two, my friend, drink deep of the hope it proclaims;
That a king arrived to receive his kingdom and it is done.
On clouds of heaven to that ancient of days he has come.
No more does Satan rule for his staff is broken and his rod shattered.
Our king crushed his head, broke his rule and left him demoted.
Rise up, oh my soul, and sound the royal trumpets of victory.
Our God reigns and now Christ holds all authority.

And we with him reign? How can it be?

But it must be. So let it be. Ring out Amen!

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Psalm 143: What David sings when he is depressed

Psalm 143 New International Version (NIV)

¹ Lord, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.
² Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.
³ The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.
⁴ So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.
⁵ I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
⁶ I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.^[a]

⁷ Answer me quickly, Lord;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
⁸ Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.
⁹ Rescue me from my enemies, Lord,
for I hide myself in you.
¹⁰ Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.

¹¹ For your name’s sake, Lord, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
¹² In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,

for I am your servant.

David is demonstrating how to sing to God when experiencing emptiness, depression of spirit and loss of hope.

Have you felt it?  Loss of HOPE?  It is the feeling you can have when your marriage is not working.  YOu have prayed and the situation continues to tear you apart.  You are at the end of your rope and have run out of faith.

What does David show us?

1.  Honesty is one key.  David is absolutely vulnerable and open before YHWH.  He pours it all out.

2.  Directness is a second key.  David clearly directs his plea to the God he knows.  I think of David as learning to love and commune with God when a shepherd.  He sings to YHWH in his lonely years in the fields.

Note on David.  Not only was he alone in the fields he was neglected too.  He is his father's youngest and least esteemed son.  We know this because he was last on the list and almost forgotten when Samuel came to his father to anoint a king.

3.  David has emotional intelligence.  He understands and is touch with himself and he understands and relates to YHWH as a person.  We can imagine that God's Spirit was present as David sang praises and laments.  We can imagine that YHWH is the One who stepped in to fill the hole in his heart and to sooth the pain there.  There must have been pain caused by his father not acknowledging David.

.   David gives a vivid description of depression - for that is what he is feeling here.  And with great discernment he recognizes that depression is a condition of his own inner man - his human spirit.

   How well and accurately he describes his condition: "So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed."  If we do not understand heart and spirit that is our loss.  David knew what he was talking about and used the appropriate biblical-psychological terms for his condition.

We might call this a prayer.  David experienced it as a plea for his life.  Listen as the man after God's own heart speaks the language that God understands.

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.