Around the world today, people are dealing with unprecedented levels of stress. Never before have we had such widespread fear, anxiety, and even terror. In response to this, I believe the Lord wants to release not just the grace to deal with stress, but strategies to overcome it. Keep reading for a prophetic word on this subject, and a prayer strategy you can use to eradicate stress from your life altogether!
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God is looking for fearless leaders who are unafraid of confrontation. If the words "fearless," "leaders," or "confrontation" make you think of other people, not yourself, then rejoice! You are a work in progress! 

However, it is the wholehearted warriors who win the war. This is the truth the Lord is impressing on my heart this week, as I return to Deuteronomy 20: the Lord's protocol for battle. 

On 7-17-17, as I reread the story of Nehemiah, the Lord showed me a vision that will greatly encourage you! Click the video to watch the YouTube, or scroll down to read a summary.

One of the fun parts of this ministry is that I get to meet all kinds of amazing people who love the Lord! One of my favorite people is Teresa DeMatos, who co-pastors the church I attend with her husband, Lee DeMatos. Together, they have experienced some powerful encounters with Jesus and - even more exciting - some very personal answers to prayer. ​
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In prayer this morning I heard the Lord say, “Your victory does not lie in your defense but in your offense.” He followed this with a prophetic word (below) that will encourage you to resist the temptation to trust in your defenses and instead, to advance with Him in a victorious offense!

There is a deception in the church today that concerns me. Like all deception, it is based on a measure of truth. But taken too far, it changes from a helpful tool for understanding spiritual seasons, to a prison in which we lock fellow believers and throw away the key.

Because prayer is a work done mostly in secret, it is rare for an intercessor to immediately know whether his prayers are effective. It is rarer still for someone to realize they are being prayed for, since humility constrains us from boasting about our praying!

Yet from time to time, we do hear of amazing answers to prayer, and have the joy of knowing that there is indeed power released when we pray. In the midst of a very difficult week, God allowed both me and my pastor to see the power of prayer. I want to use this story as a "case study" on prayer.

I had the unparalleled joy of running around my yard at 6:48 this morning, half-naked in my robe and slippers, chasing eight mutinous chickens who escaped, somehow, from their coop. I'm sure the neighbors thought I'd lost my mind.

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​The crucifixion of Christ is a reminder that all of us have to deal with times of death in our lives. We may have to face the death of a loved one, or the death of a dream, or the death of a hope we hold dear. At some point, we all come to our tombs, as Mary did in the resurrection story, and we have to confront the harsh realities of our mortality. 

​​I had made it to church, at least. And the place was buzzing with excitement. Ministry time began, and those who needed prayer went forward. But I could not will my feet to move. I felt dead inside, indifferent. I had so effectively stifled my disappointment that I actually believed, standing there, that I did not need the restored hope that God was offering that day at the altar. I was okay. God could reach me right here, if He needed to. It was almost time to leave, anyway.

Then God surprised me.

​There are two questions every believer must deal with in their Christian life. The first is: "Why aren't I bearing more fruit for the Kingdom of God?" The second is more troublesome: "Why does a good God allow evil and suffering in the world?" 

I have prayed for people in some difficult situations lately. I’ve talked with people who are struggling with significant changes in their lives that leave them wondering, ‘What now? Did I do something wrong?’ Life suddenly threw them a curve ball; something unexpected sent them spinning, wide-eyed, into what felt like a dusty, dry, desert season.

Last week I shared the story of my relationship with my husband. When we married, he said, “Everything I have is yours.” And later, when God walked us through overwhelming financial battles, God repeated those same words to me: “Everything I have is yours.” (Click here to read previous post). He unlocked strategies for me that I had not seen before. Today, I want to give you three of those strategies.

Are you ready to respond to an emergency? Would you be an effective leader in the midst of a crisis? How are you reacting to the disasters we are seeing on an international scale - would you be prepared to face one in your community?   

As a little girl, my greatest ambition was to become a nurse. Somewhere around age 7 or 8, I had a minor "emergency" of my own. I broke my leg in a biking accident. It was a spiral fracture of the tibia, I think. Stuck beneath my bike wheel, I couldn’t move my leg because of the pain.

I cried for my baby sister (then 3 or 4) to go and get help, but she laughed and kept on biking. She was too little, too carefree, to understand. I cried for my father, who was mowing the lawn at the time and could not hear me for the noise of his motor. After what seemed like hours of yelling at the top of my lungs, I finally convinced my sister to run and get my mother, who was inside the house. By then I was upset, frustrated, and terrified.

What happened next made such an impact on me that I never forgot it. A trip to the hospital was in the cards, and I was placed on an exam table by a nurse. Hers was the first smiling face I had seen in several hours, and her kind eyes made contact with mine and calmed me. Gently, she explained that they would need to take an x-ray, which meant straightening my leg.
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I panicked. I knew my leg would not straighten without pain. But this nurse knew how to position my leg just so. In an instant, my leg was straight, and it had not hurt at all! I was astonished, and I marveled at her ability to turn a painful and scary situation into one that radiated peace.

I remember not wanting to leave that nurse to go to the casting room. To alleviate pain and suffering – that was miraculous! To be so calm in the midst of a 7-year-old’s crisis – that was amazing! I decided right then and there that I would devote my life to becoming a nurse. Every scrapbook from subsequent years of my childhood bears notes in my mother’s handwriting to the effect that I would be a nurse when I grew up.

Although in the end I never pursued a nursing degree, I have chosen – perhaps unconsciously - to reach people in crisis, not only to alleviate their pain, but to extend the love and hope of Christ. I've spent countless hours ministering, praying, counseling, doing missions work, and even training as a volunteer first responder for my community.  All because of a “first responder” who took her job seriously and made a powerful impact on me.
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Retired USCG Rear Admiral Mary Landry calls this “purposeful work.” The desire to help others is a defining quality of those whom we call “first responders” in our communities: people like policemen, firemen, EMT’s, the military, and those involved in humanitarian work.
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I had the honor of spending the day with 700 Massachusetts first responders last week, at MEMA’s* annual training conference. The theme of the conference was “Effective Leadership During Crisis.” As I listened to the speakers, the Holy Spirit began showing me the need for believers to think of themselves as spiritual “first responders.” He seemed to be asking: "Are you ready to reach lost, wounded, and dying souls with all the peace, benefits, and resources of the Kingdom?"

I thought of the end times. We are closer than ever to the types of crises, or tribulations, that the book of Revelation describes. We are also closer than ever to revival. Many of my friends are diligently preparing themselves for emergencies, storing up food, water, and other necessary items. Like the nurse I admired, they are ready to deal with what’s called a “routine” emergency.
But what about compounded or extended large-scale crises, the events for which we have no standard "recipe" for our responses?

Dutch Leonard of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, explains it this way: in recent years, our nation has become very good at responding to what he calls “routine” incidents. If there’s a fire or a flood, you send the fire department. If there’s an active shooter, you send the police. You follow the recipe. However, when disasters are extended or compounded (as with “Snowmaggedon” in Boston or the Oil Spill in the Gulf), the incident transcends standard responses. Suddenly we need to get out of the box, so to speak, and join forces with others to define a more creative and effective response. Traditional methods don’t work in unprecedented events.

For example, the National Guard is prepared to clear up to 4 feet of snow in Boston at a time. But 15 feet? 20? They are prepared to plow for one night, or maybe two, without sleep. But a week of storms? Or a “Sandy” level hurricane? Suddenly, a cross-disciplinary response is required. We need reinforcements. We need to work together and we need to find creative responses in these novel situations.

Some of the most pressing needs in our communities are identical to those in the church. In both natural and spiritual emergencies, we must move beyond pleasing our “constituencies” to serving each other sacrificially. Just as a standard emergency-response framework will be inadequate in a multi-level crisis, so a denomination-oriented church cannot provide a unified response to either tribulation or revival. There is a critical need for us to work together in crisis, to lay aside doctrinal differences of opinion and selfish ambitions and focus together on spiritual restoration.

Think of Joseph, an Israelite, who helped the Egyptians prepare for an extended famine. Led by the Holy Spirit, Joseph was motivated through a dream to respond to impending crisis. (See Genesis 41-47) His was an “out of the box” response! Joseph both worked with and provided for people he considered unbelievers, in a large-scale disaster that affected thousands.

Or consider a positive, large-scale spiritual event such as revival. When God brings revival, He doesn’t touch just a handful of people. Revival, like disasters, impacts thousands.

If you read Jonathan Edwards’ accounts of the New England-based revival in the 1700’s, you find immediately that in the midst of a wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit across his state, every pastor, church, and believer needed to work together to respond to what amounted to a gigantic “crisis of the soul.” The unsaved were crying out for help, asking how to deal with the unbearably deep conviction they felt in their souls. Day and night, people were pounding on the doors of the church, looking for hope.
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Someone needed to be available to tell them about Jesus. Are we ready for this? Are we the types of friends who will get up at midnight to provide spiritual bread for those who ask? Are we ready to work with believers outside of our own church or denomination to advance the Kingdom of God?

Retired Boston Police Chief Dan Linskey said something unique in his message on leadership in crisis. He stated: “It’s in the breaking of bread, not the exchanging of business cards.” Trusted relationships with others are far more valuable than a Rolodex full of potential contacts.
 
Dan was the incident commander-in-charge during the Boston Marathon bombings. I do not know if he is a believer. But in the midst of utter chaos that day, Dan said it was the people with whom he had drunk beers, shared meals, and built trust beforehand that helped him the most. In the midst of all the FBI, police, and medical activity happening on scene, it was the friend who stuck his head in the trailer and asked Dan, “What do you need right now? What can I do for you?” that mattered most. Why? Because Dan’s kids were home alone, and he needed someone to get to them. 

I don’t think it’s an accident that Chief Linskey referred to the “breaking of bread.” It’s a picture of where Jesus wants believers to be: in intimate fellowship with each other and in communion with God. Only then will we be ready for whatever crisis comes next.
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MEMA’s challenge to “work together” in crisis applies to believers, too. As God has challenged me, so I want to challenge you to move beyond traditional or denominational responses and work together under Jesus, your Divine Commander in Chief. Are you ready to extend all the peace, benefits, and resources of the Kingdom to a lost and suffering world? 

Prayer: Father, I believe You have called me to be a “first responder” for Your Kingdom. Train me to be ready. Show me what I should be doing to prepare for both natural and spiritual crises, so that when they come I am available to reach others with Your peace, grace, and love. Give me the kind of calm, steady spirit that a first responder needs. Help me to use this “downtime” to break bread even with those outside of my usual sphere. I choose to build relationship with others throughout Your Kingdom, to strengthen Your Kingdom’s corporate response in both the revivals and the trials. Amen!

c. Deborah Perkins / His Inscriptions. 
*MEMA is the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, a division of FEMA and Homeland Security.

Deborah Perkins is passionate about connecting others with God. She writes about knowing God and hearing His voice at HisInscriptions.com. To subscribe to her free weekly blog, click here. 

"The Blessed Life." How eagerly we seek it, and how elusive it can seem! Rare are the times when we actually reach those "ideal moments" we long for in life: sipping a piῆa colada on a tropical beach, taking a year's sabbatical to pursue a passion, or enjoying the luxury of an overflowing bank account! Far more common is the struggle to overcome, the sense that we are barely keeping up.

On the surface, Christianity seems pretty straightforward. Love God, and you’ll be blessed. Disobey God, and things will go wrong. And this is true, to a point. However, this kind of black-and-white thinking leads to a simplistic spirituality that limits faith to a two-dimensional God. He’s either angry or He’s loving. Maybe He’ll bless you or maybe He won’t. You just never know; in fact, you can’t possibly know, since like all human beings, you have blind spots. You can’t see where you might have missed something.

The older I grow, the more I notice the storms. I am like a tree, whose increasing height causes its branches to tremble in greater gales. As an immature shrub I did not notice the weather as much, being close to the ground. As a more mature evergreen, I feel the wind rustle through every branch, shake every leaf, and chill me to the core. I see more, gain greater perspective, and face greater fears as I grow.

True intimacy is a function of time. If we want to know someone well, we must spend quality time with that person. There really is no substitute for time when we are building a relationship that is heart-to-heart.

A by-product of time spent together is trust. Our everyday experiences of life lived in proximity to others teach us who is trustworthy and who is not. We learn who keeps their word and who fails to deliver. In most cases, we choose our closest friends on the basis of their trustworthiness.

In the Bible, one Greek word for faith – pistis – is translated “trust,” or “full persuasion.” Jesus tells us in Luke 17:5 that faith (here, “pistis”) the size of a mustard seed can cause mountains to move. When sown, even a tiny seed of faith has great potential for miracles. Yet like all seeds, it must grow.  It isn't the size of the seed that matters. It's the nurturing of the seed that's important. 

Our relationship with God works the same way. We seed our time into His Presence, He waters us with His Word, and our trust grows. When we magnify those “giants of the faith” in God who seem to produce such impressive results everywhere they go, we are really celebrating those who have developed great trust in God and His Word over time, creating what we call “great faith.”
 
In Christian circles, I think we sometimes complicate things that are actually quite simple. We look at the “faith giants” we know and think to ourselves, “I could never do that / be like that / believe God for that!”  We forget that faith is simply trust, and trust is built over time.

Biblical giants like David and Elijah began their relationships with God in obscurity, too. Hidden in caves and tested in the wilderness they forged their trust with God in solitude and prayer. During one-on-one time with their Maker, they learned to hear Him, to trust Him, and to know Him. Jesus did the same.

There are times when we seek God in peaceful contemplation. But there are also times when God seeks us, driving us to Him in times of dire need. Though we rarely consider them as such, our trials are somewhat like divine invitations to come more deeply into His Presence and get to know Him. What feels like “down” is actually “up.” What presents itself to us as need becomes our anointing – IF we accept the invitation.

When there is nothing left for us to hold on to except the Word, we find that we are conformed more closely to His Word. We dig deeper because we simply must find Him, must connect, must receive – or all seems lost.

Our Jacobean effort results in blessing. Despite our limp, we have met with God. We know Him. We have heard Him. Leaning on our Beloved, we emerge from our trial on fire: purified yet not consumed by the fire that threatened us. Powerful yet humbled. Radiant yet unaware of His glory streaming from us. We are confident now, sure of an aspect of God’s character we had not been certain of before. We believe we can trust Him - Aha! - we have faith!

Faith is not having the solutions to our problems. It is knowing and trusting the One who does. The power to live life and do great things comes to those who believe, trust, and know their God. (See Ephesians 1:17-21; Eph. 3:20-21; 2 Peter 1:3). If we need a miracle in our circumstances, we must spend enough quality time with the Miracle-worker to learn how He operates. There is no other way.

Good relationships take time. Perhaps this is one reason why God’s mercies are “new every morning.” It takes a lot of mornings for us to become the faith giants He has called us to be! In mercy, God issues daily invitations to come and get to know Him better. Have you responded to His R.S.V.P.? The only difference between you and a “faith giant” is that the giant plans to respond… every time.

Prayer: Lord, I do want to know You more. I choose to respond joyfully to Your personal invitation to come and be with You. Don’t let me put You off because of my busy schedule. I pray that I would turn to You in every need and trial I have, seeking to know You more. As I do so, help me to locate the power You are releasing to walk through these challenging times. I respond “YES” to Your invitation, every time! With all my heart, I look forward to being with You. Amen.

c. Deborah Perkins/His Inscriptions

Deborah Perkins is passionate about helping others to connect with God. 
She writes about knowing God and hearing His voice at 
HisInscriptions.com. For speaking requests, or
to contact her directly, please click here. 

You have just been issued a summons. You must appear in court immediately, and not as a juror. You have been called by the prosecution to take the stand as a defendant in a case with a high dollar value. If you lose, your sentence could include a lifetime in prison. What’s worse: you have been wrongly accused.

If it sounds like I am being dramatic, rest assured, I am not. The first paragraph is entirely true. As a Christian, you are – this very moment – being called by the devil (the prosecution) to take a defensive stand against his false accusations. He is, unfortunately, a very good lawyer, having practiced his craft since time began. Nevertheless, you have an excellent lawyer as well: your advocate, Jesus.

Now, I know you’re on the right side of the law, and you know you’re on the right side, but the prosecution wants to prove otherwise. If he succeeds, he gains access to your money, your mental and physical health, your family, or even your life. His goal is to lock you up for a lifetime.

Having a good lawyer will help, of course, but in this heavenly courtroom what matters most is your testimony. You are about to be tested on the facts, and whether your actions are legal. If you don’t know your rights as a citizen of heaven, or if the enemy can find a weakness in your argument, you lose. 

As in any trial, you must have two weapons. The first is an excellent lawyer who is familiar with your case. If you’re a Christian, you already have a good relationship with the best attorney there is in spiritual matters: Jesus Christ. In Him you are on the right side of the law, no matter what you have done. He has also never lost a case. As long as you choose Him as your Advocate, you stand a pretty good chance of winning.

The second weapon is a detailed knowledge of the law, which in this case represents your covenant with God. This is where the prosecution often gains the upper hand, since you do not know the law as well as he does, nor are you used to defending yourself against such deceptive, unfair arguments. You will find that the prosecution has accessed information about your life that you did not wish to be made public. You will be horrified to hear that he can call to the witness stand, one by one, people who willingly testify against you, dragging past sins to the surface and making you look like a heartless criminal.

In the final analysis, it will be very important that what you do and say lines up with the law. Satan’s legal strategy from the beginning has been to cast doubt on our words: “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1-3).  Your best defense is going to be to stick to the words your attorney, Jesus, gives you to say, and avoid adding too much of your own.

“Isn’t that deceptive,” you might ask? After all, I really am guilty of a lot of things, and I don’t always do what I should. What that witness said about me was true: I really didn’t like the guy, and I treated him badly because I couldn’t forgive him. I deserve punishment.”

The question is, do you?  You might have opened the door to some legal “loopholes” the prosecution is now using against you, but the real test is whether you believe and can prove that you are innocent. In a happier moment, it’s easy to believe your mistakes are covered by the blood of Jesus, which ratifies your covenant with God. But when the opposition mounts, can you still stand on that testimony? Do you know which clauses in your contract validate what you have experienced spiritually?

Those who do cite them and win their cases. Those who don’t have a harder time. Fortunately, Jesus knows what it’s like to be a defendant on the courtroom stand. He was challenged twice: in the wilderness (Luke 4) and before His death (Luke 22-23:47). Both times He adhered to God's covenant and responded only with the Words of God. Both times, He won. 

Jesus knows what it’s like to be tried as a criminal on the wrong side of the law. Jesus didn’t allow his feelings to contaminate His testimony. Instead, He studied His covenant with God until He knew the law inside and out. He lived a legal, righteous life even when falsely accused. He accepted a death sentence from the enemy only because He knew that God would ultimately give him the keys to get out of that prison. He spoke only the words of the covenant and He fulfilled the law perfectly in His life on earth.

We believers are summoned daily to take the stand- not as those who have lived a perfect life, as Jesus did, but as those who are protected by His knowledge of and adherence to the law. Every time we are summoned, we should arrive at the courtroom with contract in hand. Everything we say in our defense should be based on what Jesus, our attorney, outlines for us. We should stick to our testimony of His goodness like glue. Anything else we say can and will be used against us!   

The more certain you are of your innocence in Christ and your rights as a believer, the more likely you are to live a blessed life.

Prayer:  Jesus, You are the most successful attorney I could ever have. I am so grateful that You know how to defend me against the trials and accusations the enemy is using against me. I have been falsely accused, Lord! Give me the time I need to sit down with you and review our covenant until I know it inside and out. Convince me of the blessings and freedom You have already won for me, so that my testimony holds up under every cross-examination. I praise You for your victories! I thank you that You have the keys to unlock every jail cell the enemy throws me into! We win! 

"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
 And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, 
but also for the sins of the whole world. 
1 John 2:1-2, KJV

Deborah Perkins is passionate about helping others to connect with God.
She writes about knowing God and hearing His voice
at His Inscriptions.com. For speaking engagements, or
to contact her directly, click here. 

Sometimes we go through a series of "unfortunate events," as Harry Potter fans would call them, which seem to suck the wind right out of our sails and leave us almost dead in the water. Our beautiful day of smooth sailing suddenly darkens, and we notice ominous storm clouds all around us. The reality of our situation hits us hard: here we are - fools! - in the middle of the sea, without any land in sight, and completely at the mercy of the storm. What were we thinking? How on earth are we going to get out of this?