![]() I usually blog about whatever is on my mind or heart at the time but occasionally I get a nudge from the Holy Spirit to tackle a given topic on here. At first I thought to myself.. great, just what the world needs, another blog about what is wrong with the church... but the more I humbled myself and considered the task, I realized that no one else in the earth can bring the exact insights that I can because no one else has gone thru what I have gone thru. In short, I had to reassure God that He was correct yet again.. lol Am I the only one who does that? I'm pretty sure many of you can relate to that. :) Church is supposed to be a hospital for broken souls. This is because only the sick need a doctor. Thus, you are going to be in one of two places if you are going to be in a local church for any length of time successfully. You will either be there getting some healing or you will be in there being a spiritual doctor helping others get the healing they need. When you break down these two things you find there are a lot of variations. For example, you may need a healing in your emotions, you may need a healing from a rare disease, you may need a healing in your mind from a demon (aka deliverance) but in any case, you would be there to receive healing. On the other side, you may be there to help others heal. You may be a hospital receptionist (church secretary), a surgeon (one on one minister) a group therapy leader (Teacher), a nurse with several patients (home group leader) or you may be on the board of directors of the hospital (Elder or Deacon). You may even be a skilled surgeon that travels and is on call for various different hospitals (usually a Prophet) or you may be one to go in, get permits and break ground to build new hospitals where they are needed (Apostle). Point is, when its all said and done the hospital is supposed to be a place to serve the community and ultimately help people heal. This is exactly what the church is supposed to be doing and in some ways is successful and in other ways is failing. Something related; everything in the Kingdom of God works thru the divine nature of Jesus. If you do not see that Father/Son loving relationship in your dealings, you are not seeing the real Kingdom of God. Here is where we get into a bit of trouble as believers. We tend to allow ourselves to get into this no man's land of belief that suggests we are there to do both heal others and get healed ourselves at the same time. Now think about that logically for a moment. Can you imagine going on for a surgical procedure and the nurse telling you the doctor was just being wheeled out of the same surgery and as soon as he recovers he'll be right in to do yours? Yet that is exactly what happens repeatedly in most churches across the USA and around the world. We need to figure out WHY we are walking in the door on Sunday mornings. This means we need goals and clarity on who is supposed to be doing what. Another example; can you imagine a janitor stepping into your room, putting his broom down and picking up a syringe to draw blood? You stop him and he says "Oh, its ok, Ive seen it done many times now"... the same thing happens with technical areas of the church all the time. This is what it looks like when someone is doing sound that has no ear to mix or someone is ushering who has not bathed in three days. Without a doubt, most hurt feelings in the church come as a result of people trying to operate in a function they are not trained well enough to operate in. What complicates matters is that many times these folks believe they have been trained or already know what they are doing when they do not. So who is really trained and who isn't? I'll get into that next week as my blog series on the Hospital Church continues... In the meantime, feel free to comment below...
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![]() Im my weight loss testimonial page of this site I detail a lot of my journey including my brushed with Atrial Fibrillation. It has been a thorn in my side (or in my chest) since 2010 when I was first officially diagnosed with it but I likely had struggled with it for a few years before that too and just didn't realize it for what it was. Afib has three stages, the first is what I had and it manifested in a severe fluttering of the atriums of the heart (top 2 chambers) and is triggered by erratic electrical impulses that begin to compete with your normal SR node which under normal circumstances sets the pattern for the normal, sinus rhythm . WHile some people can slide in and out of these irregular heart rhythms and don't even realize it, I was one who would pop out of normal rhythm and be completely devastated by it. if I was in Afib, I could barely walk without spiking my heart rate into the 170s or higher many times. Needless to say, the instant I noticed I was in Afib, getting back into normal rhythm would always become the number one priority in my life and I developed several unique ways of getting myself back into normal rhythm. After working with a couple of cardiologists who really knew their stuff, I was able to get on an anti-arrhythmic drug that would keep me clear of Afib for long periods, sometimes upwards to a year at a time but eventually I would always slide back in it. When I weighed 500 pounds and the Holy Spirit healed my nervous system restoring my movement by freeing me of paralysis, I had a flame ignited within me to better my own health. In fact the Lord spoke to me several times about helping others with weight loss and overall health in their own life even as I was completely out of shape myself. Have you ever been there where God reveals a piece of your future and you see absolutely no way for that to be a reality? if not, you haven't gone deep enough with Him yet. According to doctors I dodged several big bullets over the years that should have killed or at least debilitated me including paralysis, clots, strokes, diabetes, irregular heart rhythms, morbid obesity, High blood pressure and a litany of major and minor aches, pains and problems. Thru God's Grace and healing touch meeting with my renewed determination to succeed, I had overcame every single one of those obstacles...except the Afib. It was the one thing that continually taunted me. It was a Satanic middle finger back against the amazing work God had done in me and with each time it occurred, my resolve to be rid of it entirely grew. After putting several fleeces out before the Lord and having Him meet every single one, I had a peace about and agreed to have an Afib Ablation. This is where they go in thru the veins in your legs and up into the inside of the heart and cryo-freeze the common trouble areas that carry the rogue electronic impulses that most commonly kick people like me into Afib. That is now behind me and the inside of my heart is currenty healing up from that procedure nicely. I believe this will completely resolve this lone outstanding health issue and allow me to complete the last piece of my weight loss journey uninterrupted. This is also important as the future is so ripe with amazing possibilities for ministry and I am even praying about getting into local politics a bit. Lots of things to consider but this one thing I know... the scripture says mighty is the wisdom of the Lord. Let me give you a different word for Wisdom .. instead of wisdom, use the word Correction. Mighty is the Correction of the Lord. Ask the Lord for wisdom (Correction) and He will give it to you freely. You are only one unusual instruction away from incredible turn around in your life. Once you become humble enough to be corrected by the Lord, your path to victory becomes much more clear. You are literally only one heartbeat away from radical change and turn around for the better... I'll keep you readers updated on my status and as it warms up more and more here in Ohio, I plan on being more active than ever before as with this final piece of the health puzzle in place now, destiny is simply a series of choices for me to see, accept and carry through on... and I intend to do just that. More soon, M- ![]() My normal readers come from all over the world, about 60% here in the USA and the rest from various countries. Lately however my stats have spiked right here locally in my own back yard. This is undoubtedly due to the fact I have began to stir the waters with my local School District. To those here to "check me out" or learn more about who I am and what I believe, this is indeed a good place to start. Bookmark my blog here and revisit often. Don't forget to add me on the Gram and follow me on Twitter as well as liking my public page over on Facebook. I've never been a fan of being politically correct. That is likely what drew me to Jesus at the age of 12. Even as a youngster, there was something radical about this image of a long haired guy that stirred up so much stuff that people around Him either loved Him or wanted to kill Him. Looking back of course it was the precious Holy Spirit drawing me unto Himself, but it was that original duality that really allured me to begin to read the bible for myself and ultimately give Him my life for the first time before I became a teenager. As the years would pass by, I was so drawn to get to know God in a way that went far beyond the pages of a book. God's Word, The Holy Bible began to come alive to me. I would read verses, then passages, then chapters then entire books at a time. I was fascinated as I would read and reread the same passages and yet bring something new out of it each and every time. Accompanying my spiritual journey were several talents and giftings that God had blessed my life with. Many of these were musical in nature and as I began to yield myself to the Holy Spirit, He began to teach me musical things personally and directly through bypassing my human mind and giving me direct impartation of talent. I would find myself playing what I had learned for other more accomplished musicians just so they could explain back to me exactly what it was I was doing. This gift of spontaneous worship continues to be a faithful companion with me through this life to this very day. In recent more years Jesus began to unlock a gift of Wisdom over my life. Wisdom begins with the understanding that you don't know everything but you do know what it is that you do indeed know and what you don't. Reread that again a few times if you need to .. you will get it. ;) I am in a current season of my personal life that sees me refocusing on my personal health. I was at death's door a few years back, to read about that click here. After a miraculous healing from God that baffled doctors, personal deliverance and a rededicated effort I was able to lose close to 250 pounds now and turn my entire life around. I have been very successful in health and weight loss to be sure but the words of Jesus have never left me, what do you really gain if your soul isn't your primary focus? (My paraphrase of Matt 16:26) The soul is what really matters. Your body is the case that your soul was inserted into at it's conception. Taking care of your case is important to be sure but the most important thing is the part of you that is now eternal, your soul. This idea that we are living souls is a biblically sound doctrine. In previous generations, news reports when several people would die for whatever reason would often say "100 souls lost", or "all souls lost". This is because until recently, the idea that we are not our bodies but instead we are really souls living inside of a body was well known and well accepted. In Genesis, when God created man he breathed His Spirit into him and he (Adam) became a living soul. Things change when you begin to refocus your perception about yourself to better understand that you are a living soul. I'll probably share more on that later on but for today, just know that every human body you see is just a case, a shell, an outer covering for who the person really is, their soul. When you apply this understanding to Jesus Himself, things begin to line up better as well. The real person of God was poured into a human shell. That shell was inserted into the virgin womb of a 14 year old little girl named Mary who conceived that shell and gave birth to it. Much has been made over the centuries over what jesus really looked like. I would suggest it is irrelevant as the point isn't what the case looked like, the point was what (or who) was in the case. As Jesus earthly case was beaten and crucified, He chooses on the cross to exit His shell and does just that. This is more commonly referred to as death but it is simply a separation of the real person (soul) from their earthly shell. The same eternal God that has always existed poured Himself into a human shell, protected, sanctified and set apart that human shell so it could be pure enough to be used as a holy sacrifice back unto Himself. Once the real person of God leaves His shell He spends three days finalizing in the spirit what He now had the legal authority to accomplish, namely the redemption of all of humanity. With those "keys" in tow, He now pours Himself back into the same body He had willfully vacated 72 hours earlier and the first key he uses is the one He has for Himself. Remember, He died under the curse of the law just like everyone before Him. The power of the resurrection is manifested in the person of the resurrection and as He reinserts Himself back into His previous shell, that shell restores and regenerates itself almost instantly and for another 40 days He walks around talking with and ministering to hundreds of eyewitnesses. In this shell He eventually ascends back up toward Heaven and along the journey His presence continues to regenerate His shell to the point that we see it described by John in Revelation chapter 1. Feet like brass, eyes like fire, so majestic and powerful in awestruck wonder that John falls to the ground before Him as if John had died. This is the exact same Jesus who inserted himself into Mary's young womb, the same Jesus that told Moses to stretch forth his rod, the same Jesus that met the three hebrew boys in the fire to sustain them, the same Jesus that is attempting to use my words as a vehicle to capture your imagination as you read this right now... He is the one who really matters. Why not take a few minutes, turn off the things that appease your shell, ignore your outter case for a bit and listen to this song, it's all about Jesus, the one who really matter. M- |
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June 2022
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