|
Dear Friends,
God is so many wonderful things to the believer: Father, Deliverer, Friend, Protector, Refuge, and Savior. Through the gifts of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, God loves and guides us as we walk through the "wilderness" of this world on our way to the Promised Land of heaven! As I mediated on Psalm 68 and Numbers 10 this week, the Lord highlighted three particular attributes of Himself that He wanted me to share with you. He is a Cherished Husband, a Prophetic Guide, and a source of Rest and Refreshment at Rephidim. Listen to this audio teaching from our Leaders' Bible Study to discover beautiful prophetic parallels between Israel's encounters in the wilderness and the Body of Christ's journey today. Blessings, Deborah 
A war is a series of battles, not just a “one-and-done.” Satan, the enemy of our souls, is prepared to fight for the long haul. Believers today must be equally equipped in the knowledge of God and His Word to defeat him. Nearly two years ago, the Lord took me into a vision of His armory. He showed me exquisite swords and weapons hanging on the armory walls. Each sword represented a Scripture verse or strategy that could be used in spiritual warfare. Sadly, for the most part, they were not being used. This week, as many of us are taking a firm stand in very difficult times, I feel it is important to re-publish the vision. I want to encourage you to take up your swords for as long as necessary, believing in both the sharpness of each blade and the slickness of each anointing! Biblical warriors were as married to their swords as present-day prayer warriors can be to our cell phones. 2 Samuel 23:10 describes one of David’s mighty men, Eleazer, who “stood his ground and struck the Philistines until his hand grew weary and stuck to his sword.” We’re told that the LORD brought about a great victory because of Eleazer’s perseverance with the sword. Psalm 30:5 says: “Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.” Psalm 12:6 expands on this thought, saying: “The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible; like gold refined seven times.” Jesus adds in Matthew 4:4 that man LIVES by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Every sword in God’s armory is available to believers today. Faith does not shrink back to destruction when weary! There is a weariness that has overtaken many in the Body of Christ right now, but the Lord is raising up warriors that are as captivated by the Word as David was, and as skilled at using it as Eleazer. As you read this vision, my prayer is that you will cling to the Word like never before and see continued victories. Whether you speak it, sing it, decree it, or pray it, the Word of God will NEVER return void. In this new era, I hear the Lord issuing an age-old call to His Body to return to our First Love: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” (Revelation 2:2-4) 
Elijah approached all the people and said, "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." But the people of Israel did not answer him so much as a word. ~1 Kings 18:21
In the 9th century B.C.E., when drought covered the land of Israel, a weak King Ahab and a wicked Queen Jezebel ruled. The prophet Elijah was moved to confront Israel's double-minded prophets on Mount Carmel, asking them to make a decision. Their decision was not about what to have for breakfast that morning, but whether they wanted to eat at all in the future!
As I prayed this morning, I heard the voice of the Lord speaking about seeds and harvest. It is so important to be sowing God's Words right now so that He can multiply our harvest! The Lord also reminded me of a word He had released in January, 2017 concerning the "Garden of the Lord," which I have not published until now. The two words dovetailed so beautifully that I wanted to share them with you today. My prayer is that these words will encourage you to intentionally plant the "seeds" the Lord is giving you in this season so that you can see a great harvest. 
"WILL HE EVEN MOLEST THE QUEEN WHILE SHE IS WITH ME IN THE HOUSE?" ~Esther 7:8 Dear Friends, Those who desire to live a life of prayer in the Presence of the Lord will eventually find that there is someone who seeks to interrupt intimacy and destroy identity. I believe that what I share today will set many people free from a demonic strategy of Satan used to steal peace and stop believers from abiding in their secret places with the Lord. 
I took a long walk today before the snow came; before our governor announced a stay-at-home advisory for the next few weeks. In this time of worldwide sickness and pervasive fear, it was good to get out of the house, to reflect on God’s beautiful creation, and to focus on Him. As I walked, I listened to a beautiful worship song from Bethel Music called “The Blessing.” (Listen to it here.) This song was released just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, and never has a song been more timely! The lyrics are scriptures which contain the priestly Aaronic blessing over Israel in Numbers 6:24: The Lord bless you and keep you The Lord make His face shine upon you The Lord be gracious unto you and give you peace. Worship is key for me in times of trial; it feeds my spirit and strengthens my “inner man.” Just as a dear friend sent this song to me as a blessing, I encourage you to receive this song as God’s blessing over you as well. He is truly FOR YOU! Most people turn to familiar scriptures in times like these: Psalm 23, Psalm 91, John 14, 2 Corinthians 4:3-10. We pray these scriptures and receive a measure of strength from them every time they are read. Yet this morning as I prayed, I encountered Psalm 91 in an entirely different way. 
As I sat down to write and pray this morning, the Spirit of God impressed upon my heart to turn the pages of Paul’s letter to the Colossians into a prayer. With several translations of Colossians in front of me, I began meditating on the powerful words about Christ’s preeminence, transforming them, paragraph by paragraph, into personal prayers. I realized then just how rich God’s Word is when we pray it as promises over ourselves! Never are we closer to praying the will of God than when we are praying the Word of God! The Spirit and the Word work together as we pray, making our divine inheritance manifest as we speak God’s Word back into His heart. To pray the Word of God is to agree with what God has already said He will do, setting in motion spiritual blessings that have been seen throughout history and can be activated once again by faith. Space limits me to sharing just the first section of my prayers from Colossians with you today. If you would like to order the complete booklet of "Pray Colossians!" please click below to purchase in our store. May this heartfelt “prayer paraphrase” of Paul's first-century letter to the Colossians reveal more to you about your inheritance in Christ and build your confidence to begin praying the will of God over your life! 
For the past few weeks, the Lord has been bringing to my mind a vision as I’ve reflected on prayer. The scene is so unlikely to ever happen in the natural that it is almost humorous! Yet the Lord is impressing on me that this scenario happens daily in the lives of many believers, and spiritually, it can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Today I’d like to share this vision with you because I believe it identifies a particular problem we face in prayer and gives us a strategy for greater victory. This vision could be the one major reason why Christians are defeated on the battlefield, and I don’t want you to be a casualty! There are some Bible stories that are so powerful, they have the ability to change your entire perception of who God is and how He feels about you. For me, one such story is found in Luke 24. In the midst of great grief, turmoil, and confusion, two disciples encountered the Wonderful Counselor and were forever changed. In places of pain and confusion myself, I reread this story and see such beauty in it. Take a walk with me along the Emmaus Road to see how brokenness is turned to beauty. 
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. ~Mark 1:35 In a world where there are so many different kinds of prayer and meditation, what is the right way to pray? Should we pray the Lord’s Prayer? Do we pray alone, or with a priest? Do we need rosary beads, or a tallit? Can we pray effectively at home, or does prayer work better in church? What does the Bible really say about prayer? And how can we be sure that our prayers will be answered? Read Deborah's newest post, published by LivingBetter50 magazine, right here. 
At the beginning of September, Jewish New Year 5779, I heard the Lord give a warning. The enemy, it seems, is bent more than ever on undermining believers in this hour. (One glance at the Kavanaugh hearings is enough to convince me of that!) This is the year, the Lord emphasized, to go deep in Him. To hold on to the Word of Truth as never before, to guard against deception, to seek Him for greater revelation. We will need it! 
God is issuing a Divine Invitation! It’s not just an invitation to salvation, although believers begin there. It’s not just an invitation to experience healing or deliverance, although those are benefits of belonging to the Kingdom. It’s an invitation to come up higher spiritually, to experience the supernatural dimensions of the Kingdom of God. Why would we need this? Francis Frangipane says it best: “A Christian is not just a person going to heaven. Shouldn’t a Christian also be a person coming from heaven, with the goods, power and virtues of heaven?” Christianity isn’t meant to be a just a security blanket, providing comfort when we contemplate death. It’s meant to be a dynamic relationship involving supernatural power here and now. The beloved disciple, John, understood this and gives us a glimpse into God’s multi-faceted invitation. 
In a charismatic church I attended a couple of weeks ago, the pastor asked this question: "Be completely honest. How many of you read your Bible on a daily basis?" Fewer than 5 hands went up. Alarmed, I decided to ask the same question in a second church where I preached the following Sunday. Again, the same response - just 6 or 7 hands this time. I was amazed. Not coincidentally, the same week I received Lifeway's "Facts and Trends" magazine in the mail. One of the articles contained this statistic: 66% of Christians (including Evangelical, Mainline and Black Protestant churches) believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life." Among Catholics, that statistic jumps to 79%.* The Bible teaches that Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life. " (John 14:6) No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ. For a Christian, then, this belief in many roads leading to heaven is, quite simply, untenable. How did we get here? 
No one was more skeptical of the supernatural than I. Raised in a world governed by the intellect, I was trained from an early age to focus on learning and self-development while rejecting emotionalism and spiritual “fanaticism.” Truth was limited to what could be discerned through science or the five physical senses alone. In fact, when I finally discovered the Holy Spirit, the very first “label” my family put on me was that of a “fanatic.” Never mind that I hadn’t actually done anything worthy of that label yet; my confession of faith in the third person of the Trinity was enough to worry them! 
“Therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” -Philippians 2:12, NKJV
This week, I woke up early one morning to the unmistakable musing of the Holy Spirit. As I opened my eyes and peered into the darkness of our bedroom, I heard Him saying, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling!”
This seemed a strange sort of thought at first. Until I padded my way downstairs, where I could pray and write without disturbing anyone, I wasn’t sure why this fragment of a verse from Philippians 2 was reverberating in my spirit. It was as I sat with the Lord and listened further that He began to clarify… 
Everyone struggles with some aspect of their life that doesn't measure up. We all feel inferior and inadequate at times. For me, the partial deafness I experienced since childhood was a "thorn in my flesh" that reminded me continually that I was less than perfect: damaged goods. And yet God turned this disability in the natural into an ability in the Spirit: I learned (from John 10:27) that everyone can hear God. Silence helped me focus better. It was my encounters with a God I could hear that changed me from being fearfully insecure to being full of "holy boldness." Isaiah had a similar transformation in God's throne room. (Read Isaiah chapter 6 for the full story.) He moved from being "undone" in God's presence to saying, "Here I am, send me!" Insecurity, weakness and sin were all removed when a coal from the altar touched his lips. 
Too often we want God to agree with us in prayer, when the real work of prayer is to agree with God! We see in scripture that we are to pray with “all kind of prayers and supplications,” and jump joyfully into prayer, asking God to agree with our human assessments of life’s difficult situations. Then we wonder why our prayers didn’t work. I know. I’ve done it! Here are just a few of my not-so-fruitful prayers: “God, would you take that difficult person out of my life?” Or, “Can you please (I even said please!) get me out of this trial?” Or even better: “Make my children (wife, husband, etc) obey you!” I’ve found that God is not interested in agreeing with my flesh. My human nature. Nor will he override someone’s free will to get them saved! While praying through our emotions can be cathartic (David did it in the Psalms), it’s not the most fruitful way to pray. So what really works? 
It’s easy to be excited about prophetic words, especially when they promise growth, expansion, restoration, or blessing. The prophetic word I released at the beginning of 2017 contained all of those. God is speaking about Kingdom expansion in the coming year. Yet God also gave us a prophetic mandate to re-examine Nehemiah’s “growth strategies,” found in the scriptures. This post on discouragement is the first in a series I will write on combating the enemy’s attacks during a time of growth.  Encouragement is a rare commodity. Strife and division abound in today’s culture, so much so that it seems things have never been worse. Even within the church, we find sharp divisions between believers over politics, doctrine, gifts, and personalities. Despite our call to love one another, Christians often doesn’t look much different from the world. If the lack of encouragement and unity makes you wish Jesus would simply come and rapture us now, you might be surprised to know that two of the most respected leaders in the early Christian church encountered the same problem, just a few years after Jesus walked the earth! The source of their division was a man named John Mark. 
"The more you rely upon the Anointed One (Jesus) and His anointing in you, the more life you will impart to others through your creations." This is what God whispered to me this week. He is looking for people who rely fully on Him as they live, work, minister and create things for Him. I believe He wants us to move beyond the quick prayers we send up at the beginning of our projects or events ("Bless this, Lord...") and move deeper into a place of total reliance on His Holy Spirit. Listen to what He shared in my prayer time: 
Summertime and the living is… NOT always easy! If you’re a parent with kids, you know how *challenging* summers can be! Between long work hours for my hubby and an increasingly busy schedule feeding and caring for my family (think weekly sleepovers, the constant geographical shuttling of children to and fro, doctor’s appointments, and - oh – did I mention we are scraping AND painting the house ourselves in this heat wave?!), I was distracted from my usual routine and beginning to feel exhausted. And there’s still another month until the kids go back to school! Thankfully, through the generosity of a friend, the children and I escaped to the mountains for a few days this week, bringing one of their friends along. Here, they could swim and play with less supervision on my part, and I could relax and perhaps write. The words of David in Psalm 119 came alive to me: “Revive me, Oh Lord!” 
Studies show that only 1 in 5 Americans reads their Bible on a regular basis, even though 88% own a Bible.* If you're like most people, you want to connect with God - and even have what you need to do so - but life gets in the way. Distractions, necessities, and even emergencies pull you away from your scheduled time with God, and by the end of the day you feel frazzled, empty, and guilty. There's got to be a better way! That's why His Inscriptions exists. 
It's here! Deborah's new Bible Study, How to Inherit Your Spiritual Promises: 5 Steps to Success, is now available on Amazon.com in Kindle and print formats. Click here to order! 
At 24 years old, I embarked – alone - on a journey to Africa. Feeling frustrated with corporate America, I longed to dedicate myself to a more altruistic cause, especially one that benefited the Kingdom of God. Because I spoke fluent French, I chose to go to Niamey, the capital of Niger, to serve with a team of teachers and evangelists through Sudan Interior Missions. It was a life-changing decision, one that would launch me into full-time ministry when I returned. |
Free Link to the Subscriber Resource Library when you join His Inscriptions!
About
Deborah Perkins 
Categories
All
Archives
November 2024
AuthorA severe hearing loss from childhood caused Deborah Perkins to develop what she now calls her secret weapon: tuning in to God's voice. A Wellesley College graduate and an award-winning writer, Deborah is now a wife and mother of 3 boys. Deborah has devoted over 25 years to professional and lay Christian ministry in New England and beyond. Her passion is inspiring people to cultivate greater intimacy with God. 
|
RSS Feed