The power of believing in a promise revealed in a night dream is a wondrous thing. OR believing in a truth spoken to one's spirit. When I think of the prophet who got the word of the lord but who changed his mind when the older prophet told him otherwise then got himself killed by a lion, I think how wonderfully powerful the Bible is in its declaration of God's nearness. Unlike that prophet, we are to decide: HAS God spoken to me or not? Has God told me about the 6 great works?Has God said? (The Bible chapter is at the end of this post.) So I have made the decision: If I am given a dream with promise of loveliness, health, etc... I am going to believe it is from God. If I am told how to eat and what to eat in a dream, I will take the guidance as being from God. The world tells us that good things in dreams -- such as my son talking or me getting better-- are wishfulfilment from my mind. But the Bible calls these things God's promises and "words from God."
There is nothing else but our spirit, and what God has told us.There is no proof that what we think we heard is really what we heard. We wonder if it's all in our minds. But we are called to have a relationship that tells us that God is loving and very near us and that "if we hear his voice we must not harden our hearts." It is a difficult thing in a world that depends on "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." It's a hard thing when we want hard facts
and we want communal support to believe that Jesus disarmed the principalities.
But a personal relationship means trusting that God is really with you. So this morning although i was so so so tired and i was on the verge of crying because i have lived since I was 13 with cancerphobia and since i was 28 with sleeplessness issues, I said to God "I will hold on to what you have spoken to me in my spirit."
The stronghold of the human mind is: But why is God so near me? Does God speak to little old me?
The stronghold says, "Has God said?" This is the great temptation said to Eve. So, in answer to this primal temptation, we have to set our hearts to be fixed on the fact that God has indeed spoken to us.
And the power of hopeful and guiding dreams have been to tell me to hope --no matter what. I have to decide
once and for all that God has spoken in these hopeful and guiding dreams. So hope is here. My friend Jessica says that "false humility says to believe you heard nothing but faith says to believe and hope." This is true.
It is seen as educated to not believe. It is seen as self-caring to be wary of hope and trust. It's seen as mature to be cynical and to have no hope. And to be "realistic" means looking at the worse case instead of trusting that God has told you to hope. But the real world is not like that. I'm so glad God gave Jessica into my life
because, like me, she works daily to not fall into the world's ideas and so many Christians are only vaguely aware of God speaking to them in dream in such a real "hear his voice" way. And so many are only dimly aware of the real world (as God sees it) in a rare dim kinda way. So it's good I have her for fellowship.
But we have to be strong y in the knowledge of God's nearness. To be without God is a nightmare
So many Christians say that God hasn't guided them, or that they've been waiting for him to say something
but God's sheep hear his voice. Jesus said that. So people hear and they just harden their heart because it is hard to believe the good news to think that God is telling you to hope and we are all trained that God is a big CEO in the sky who only talks to important people. It's hard for the human mind to think that God speaks to everyone in dreams. But God has said in the last days He will pour out His spirit upon ALL (not just Christians.)
God has reconciled us to Him. So we have to walk in the spirit. We have to walk in the sensitivity of God's view of the world. Like if God says to you out of he blue, "Don't turn the tv to that channel" or if God says "turn on the radio to the channel." Every day we are either yielding to the flesh (and the world's way of doing things) or to the spirit and learning to trust in hope, love, faith.
The human way of thinking and the Godly way of thinking are always warring against each other
and the mind of man is so so so so prone to think carnally. So hard to renew one's mind because we are trained from ages to be conformed to how the world thinks and works --that being conformed to the world's ways is the "wise" thing
We are blessed that we have eyesalve to anoint our eyes that we can see. We just have to hold on to what we have seen, and having begun in faith, we must not fall back on the law or worldly wisdom.
Anyway, the good thing is that I am holding on to the promises in those dreams as if God himself had come to me and spoken the word to me himself. God wants to teach us to rely on Christ in us and it's taken me a long long long time to kinda sorta consistently hold to the heavenly vision of things. But I'm getting really better I think. A true spiritual hope, a true conviction and expectation of good and belief in God's continuing work...walking in faith and not by human wisdom or human sight
And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD. And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the LORD thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the LORD, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before. And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward. And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place: For so was it charged me by the word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel.
Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah. And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon, And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread. And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place:For it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.
And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back: And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee, But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers. And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase. And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcase cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcase: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the LORD: therefore the LORD hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake unto him. And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him. And he went and found his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase: the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass. And the prophet took up the carcase of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back: and the old prophet came to the city, to mourn and to bury him. And he laid his carcase in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother! And it came to pass, after he had buried him, that he spake to his sons, saying, When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones: For the saying which he cried by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.
After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
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