Courtroom of Heaven

Revelation 12:10 KJV — And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

No matter what we have done wrong, even the tiniest of sins, the enemy brings it to the courtroom of Almighty God, day and night.

If we default on a payment with a creditor and the penalty is beyond our means, that creditor will take the matter before a judge to obtain legal right to collect, regardless of our personal circumstances. Our non-payment might be due to a loss of income, an extended hospital stay, maybe we had to replace the furnace in our house, or our paycheck might have bounced. No matter the reason, that creditor wants their money and they have no mercy.

When the court date comes, and we decide we are too embarrassed to show up to court, what happens?

The creditor will be granted their legal judgment against us. Now they can garnish from the small amount we receive to keep our family fed. We know they are not suffering because of our little debt but they will show no mercy as to our struggle. They have legal right and that’s all there is to it.

The creditor will not bet on us to take their legally obtained judgment seriously either. No, we already defaulted so instead, they go to our income source and tell them they must pay them directly under penalty of law. Even if our employer wanted to help, their hands are tied. Until the debt is paid in full, we have no choice but to suffer the burden of garnishment.

Had we, despite the embarrassment, went to court that day, we would have been able to plead with the judge. We could have reasoned with the judge, telling him the circumstances that kept us from fulfilling our obligation to pay and ask for the mercy of the court in working out a fair deal.

Chances are the judge would empathize with us and rule more in our favor due to the circumstances we had no control over. The creditor may not show us mercy but the judge is likely to be fair, just and rule with mercy.

Our enemy, the Devil or Satan, is counting on us to not show up in court. Like that creditor, the enemy goes after any and all legal ways to throw the book at us for every sin we commit, even those we didn’t consider to be sins. The judge has little choice but to allow him judgement against us unless we go to court and plead our case.

The enemy fills our minds and hearts with unworthiness, shame or a downright rebellious attitude knowing we are unlikely to approach the courts of heaven full of anger or guilt. The enemy is well aware that the atonement for our sin is found in that courtroom. He knows God’s mercy and grace, and He is very well aware of who our advocate, our lawyer is. It Is in the enemy’s best interest to make sure we do not show our faces in court.

Sadly, most of us fall for his deception, lies and tricks. We then live lives’ less than we were created to live. Our purpose is stolen or taken, our joy, comfort, peace, our health, all our blessings, our sanity, sometimes even our will to live. We may have been just barely surviving and still the enemy showing us not a shred of mercy will debit from us again and again.

When a trust has been set up for someone under the age of 18, or in some cases age of 25, we can’t use the money in the trust even in an emergency, without going before the courts and producing convincing evidence of a need to make a withdrawal. Although it’s our money, the way it’s set up is to protect us from squandering it all away in our young, naïve understanding.

The court then is our advocate and will decide if what we present is a true need or not. Chances are, if we have taken time to go before the courts to ask, we have already thought about it long and hard and we are convinced of our need, and we certainly don’t wait until our need is met to go ask the courts to meet the need.

This is the main reason our enemy goes to any length making sure we never show up in the courts of heaven. What we ask for is already there and it’s already ours, we just need to ask for it. The enemy deceives us into believing we can’t go into heaven’s courts dirty, sinful, unworthy or ashamed. He convinces us that somehow we must meet the need first. Truth is, we must wear the need into the courtroom and plead for said need to be met by what has already been deposited for us. The blood of Jesus!

Romans 5:8 KJV — But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus didn’t wait for us to stop sinning, He didn’t even wait for us to agree we needed saving. No, even while we were yet sinners, He died for us. We have a trust already set up for us, all we need to do is go to court and show we realize and understand our need and with Jesus as our Advocate, our Judge, full of mercy and grace waits ready to grant us our request.

Romans 8:33-39 KJV — Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let’s not allow the enemy to bully us out of going before the courts of heaven where we can’t lose. We call the Judge Abba, Father and Jesus already paid the debt. Let us go boldly into the courts with thanksgiving and praise, laughing at our adversaries loss.

Until next time, may God bless you and keep you as you seek Him with your whole heart.

True gratitude

Today, of all days in a year, is a day to pause and truly reflect on our attitude of gratitude. I believe Father God spoke to my spirit saying, “true gratitude is not just a feeling of being thankful, true gratitude is being content in the right now without any expectation of the future or crippling bondage of the past.” In a world that seems to use God as if He was a genie in a bottle, always ready to grant our next wish or fix our next problem, I wonder if God feels taken for granted.

As He consistently pursues our hearts, forgives our selfishness, listens to our prayers, catches all our tears, and longs for us to just notice. We get wrapped up in the world, chasing something to fill that void only He can fill. Today though, as it is after all Thanksgiving, maybe today is the day we will truly pause, reflect, and take notice of the Majesty, Power, Mercy, Goodness, Patience, Gentleness, Kindness, Love, Forgiveness, and Steadfastness of Almighty God.

Today I choose not to act like a spoiled daughter of the King, instead being a humble servant as I lay down my crown and choose to acknowledge Father God’s provisions and blessings bestowed upon me. I choose to rise up from the desert wilderness of complaint and instead be watchful of His work and speak out His Goodness as I see Him turn my ugly into beauty, my curse into blessing, my sorrow into Joy, my broken into masterpiece, and my hate into Jesus kind of love.

Oh what an Awesome God we serve!

Father God loves us so much that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life- John 3:16.

Today as we enjoy the turkey dinner, friends and family, even those of us who may not have family or friends or turkey dinner might find the blessing in our storms, circumstances, chaos or troubles and may we choose to speak out so the world can know just how grateful we are to serve a truly Good, Loving, Compassionate God, Who didn’t even withhold His most precious Son from us, but instead sacrificed Him so we too can be called the children of God.

Praise God!

Thank you Father God for Your Goodness, Mercy and Love, thank You for pursuing even someone so undeserving  as me..

Until next time may God bless you and keep you as you seek Him with your whole heart.

Mistake Blessings

Mistakes are building blocks of life, the blessing of grace and growth, not to be mistaken as a sign of incompetence or failure. The failure is the ones stagnant in growth, too afraid of making mistakes. — Proverbs 3:11-12 My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord Or loathe His reproof, For whom the Lord loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights. — Job 5:17 “Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves, So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. Fear of making mistakes can manifest as cowardice and stagnant spiritual growth, also causing an unfulfilling life experience here on earth. The longer one walks in this fear the more cloudy their vision becomes of who God is and who they themselves are. The wrath of God becomes their justification for stagnation in spiritual growth and understanding, while the love of God becomes a distant dream that one day they hope to obtain. They live life riding the fence, never knowing their true potential, never understanding their true value and worth (aka the reason they themselves are the masterpiece that God put together on purpose that the world was lacking). The missing puzzle piece so to speak. We mustn’t teach our children not to make mistakes, we should teach them instead how to learn from the ones they do make. We shouldn’t raise them to fear being wrong or to hide their misunderstandings and questions about why the world works the way it does. Instead, we should instruct them who their creator is and how purposefully He knit then together. Show them how exciting it can be to live life as the adventure it was meant to be. Teaching them how to seek understanding and how to receive instruction gratefully. Allow them to experience the joy of getting it right, a job well done and the pain or disappointment of missing the Mark or not making the team. Mentor them that mistakes are not only necessary for growth but also certain to happen. Open their eyes and hearts to the instruction and counsel of Almighty God the Creator who knows the reason they are here, the purpose in which they were created. The God who knows what makes them his masterpiece. We shouldn’t instruct our children in how to get their ways, wants and desires by being demanding or entitled. Instead, instruct them how to be contented with their basic needs being met. We are all created on purpose and with a purpose. I picture father God looking over the Earth that he created and saying it is good, but it would be better with this someone. Then he knits that someone together to be born making a masterpiece within the masterpiece. No two people have ever been the exact same. We all have our uniqueness. We all have something in us that only we can offer the world. Each of us just one piece to be connected to the whole just like a puzzle. We were not put on Earth as adults. We all had to be born so that we could grow into our purpose by learning from our mistakes, by our asking questions, by our drawing closer to our creator with the acceptance of salvation through his son Jesus Christ, and by receiving his instruction that in effect is pruning and watering our faith. Father God blesses us with the ability to make mistakes and learn from them. — 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; — Hebrews 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Another lie it seems has become the reality of society, the craftiness of the enemy has led so many of us to believe the making of mistakes is so bad we must avoid doing so at all cost and hide the ones we do make behind a closed door heavily guarded. We not only operate in this way of thinking we help it along by passing our own judgment upon our brothers and sisters in Christ even if only with a look of disappointment on our face in response to a mistake another has made. It’s no wonder why so many of us have such heavy burdens of regret upon our shoulders not understanding why we can’t seem to lay them down at the cross and leave them there. The enemy has made the way near impossible for Father God to break through in order to shape us, mold us, water us and enlighten us as we journey toward our true purpose. If we are so afraid of being wrong or making mistakes we will justify the ones we can, therefore, never seeking forgiveness or correction. And the big ones we may ask forgiveness for them in private, yet still hold the heavy burdens of guilt upon our shoulders, to afraid of releasing them and chancing someone finding out. — Hebrews 12:6-8 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Praise God for His Merciful Agape Love for us. Love that the enemy cannot penetrate or conquer. Love that gently reveals truth to us, giving us the option of escaping the clutches of the enemies lies. — Proverbs 29:1 A man who hardens his neck after much reproof Will suddenly be broken beyond remedy. Now we know why the enemy goes to such extremes to deceive us about making mistakes. If we stay under his deception long enough we could find ourselves beyond remedy. The enemies ultimate goal becoming reality. — Proverbs 25:12 Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine Gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear. This is the way we should be understanding the making of mistakes. The inevitable truth is we will no doubt make mistakes. We can choose to consider the mistakes we make as some of God’s best blessings of grace. Then we can let go of the heavy burdens of fault and keep only the seed of truth planted by His Spirit into our understanding from each mistake made. Until next time may God bless you and keep you as you seek Him with your whole heart.