Is it Mental Illness, or is it Psychological Warfare?

Several years ago, I had an a very negative experience.

The church I attended was experiencing some big changes and although these were good, an enemy had an agenda too.

Difficulties began to emerge relationally, a number of people were confused, hurt and communication began to break down. People’s minds and hearts were under assault. It became clear that there was more at work than human souls.

I assumed the affects were localized to people directly involved in some of the conflicts. Therefore, My experience seemed bizzare and unrelated to praying about these issues.

I began to have mental flashes, intrusive mental pictures and short movie type scenes playing in my mind that no one would want. They seemed intermittent at first and were disturbing. Then the frequency increased and occurred both at night and in the day.

At this point of such an experience, many people begin to wonder, “Am I  going crazy? Am I losing it?” or assume that this can be the only plausible answer. Sometimes, maybe most times, it’s psychological warfare.

Because I didn’t understand what was occuring and didn’t seem to know how to completely block these images from my mind, I began to feel distressed and anxious. My present experience seemed to outweigh my spiritual training–my understanding needed upgraded, but not the way I expected.

When we encounter new things, or the unknown, we are in learning mode. We Don’t feel we have all the info needed for the present. We have past experience and victories to guide our responses, but more so, we pay close attention to our commander for more Intel and directions.

On Ground level, such experiences may feel chaotic. It’s hard to see what’s actually taking place, and Friendly Fire may occur. What we experience at ground zero may feel intense, confusing, painful.

At some point, I shared with someone that I was experiencing some unusual things and found out that many others were as well. In this situation, trying to figure out what spirit is creating the trouble is often typical protocol for spiritual warfare.

Many, if not most of us, have been taught in both the natural world and the spiritual, we need to trace the source of the enemy attack in order to be free, to find out how the enemy found a door or legal right. This typical response is so opposite of what Holy Spirit began to teach me.

Often we are taught things that sound spiritual but aren’t necessary to our freedom and may even cause us to feel more bound up. When we honestly desire truth, He will lead us into it.

Eventually the trouble all stopped, and in the aftermath I could see so clearly what I couldn’t in the midst of the experience. Because it had seemed so real, I was afraid that somehow I might be at fault for what I was experiencing, or that I might be losing the ground I had previously gained-even though my whole heart was resisting and I just wanted it to end.

I’ve learned so much since that experience about a new kind of weapon. A type of “warfare” that consists of a state of Rest.

Sometimes people describe contending for something and yet as I listen to them it sounds more like they are praying from a place of fear, or trying to shadow box (which is what I’d been experiencing with those mental flashes).
True contending comes from a place of standing firm in confidence, knowing that we have the upper hand in authority and power, convinced that we are already triumphant.

As I thought about that past experience, I found myself wishing that someone could have identified the real issue and told me:

The fact is you Are Free, and no attempt to affect you changes that. Nothing has changed in reality; you are experiencing a ruse.  

All I really needed was to know that it was merely smoke and mirrors; it wasn’t me and wasn’t mine and I didn’t need to react as though it was. I could have simply rested and known I was just fine, ignoring the mind tricks. Any tactic the enemy was using was simply that-a tactic. Nothing had actually changed.

None of it was real. 

Like in the Divergent series, when Tris is in the water tank and seems about to drown (which felt very real to her in the moment) but suddenly she saw and knew the truth:

“This isn’t real.”

The experience was a phenomena of the mind that felt very real, like a dream might, but when she realized it was merely a psychological phenomena, she was free that instant-actually she had been free the whole time. She simply came to that awareness. Test over.

The experience I had was one of the worst types of torment I’d ever experienced. But now I know something I didn’t understand then:

If it’s not His, it’s not mine.

I am one spirit with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17). I don’t have to shadow box a defeated enemy. I don’t need to wear myself out resisting, repeatedly declaring, binding, and trying to block the enemy from messing with my head, sparring until I’m exhausted, only to start all over again the next day or time.

Here’s a fact. Our spiritual enemies are narcissists. They love for the focus to be on them. The more you spar the more egomanic they behave. That’s why Rest is an amazing weapon. It’s function is much like the imagery in Psalm 23.

THE LORD is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall not lack.
He makes me lie down in [fresh, tender] green pastures; He leads me beside the still and restful waters.
He refreshes and restores my life (my self); He leads me in the paths of righteousness [uprightness and right standing with Him—not for my earning it, but] for His name’s sake.
Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me; Your rod [to protect] and Your staff [to guide], they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head withoil; my [brimming] cup runs over. Surely or only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place.

I can dismiss whatever isn’t good, pure, noble or trustworthy because the Strong Man (Holy Spirit) lives in me. This house is filled. I can set my gaze on the One who loves me and gave himself for me.

Experientially we learn to live in our dominion too. When we know the truth, we experience and live the Helmet of Salvation, the mind of Christ.                                  Our mind becomes a fortress of peace when we understand the truth.

We don’t have to feel vulnerable,  we can be confident in trust, and enter His rest.

See TheologyMom for another testimony.

Audio Presentation by Kat Huff: “IN” Christ

Audio Presentation by Kat Huff: “IN”.

Experiencing Oneness-the Unexpected Element

Experiencing Oneness: the Unexpected Element

quite what I expected to hear say….. “Are you willing to be inconvenienced? “I barely thought for a moment before emphatically exclaiming, “Yes anything, I just want to know what it is to experience this oneness with you!”
That theme had been running through my soul for a couple months..? Oneness with God…to be one with Him… What exactly did it mean? I knew He lived in me, and was all around… So what was this echo in my soul I kept hearing? Oneness with God…there seemed to be an invitation in the words.

On the drive in to the city I was lost in His presence, Experiencing His tangible Love. There was an intensity to it I’d not known before..my whole being knew then what the psalmist, prophet, king, David had experienced when he penned: My heart & flesh cry out, for you the living God; your spirit is water for my soul, so my whole being longs for you.

Now standing at the jewelry counter just days before Christmas, my mind was transfixed, not on the gold and sparkling gems, but on what had transpired during that last 3/4 hour of the drive. I’d asked Him, what does it Really mean to be One with you? How do I experience it fully?  He replied,” Are you willing to be inconvenienced? In awe of everything I’d experienced thus far with God, caution was flung aside, in my resounding “Yes!”

“Then be ready,” I heard within. I left the store with my distraction, smiling as the fragrance of His presence flowed with me as I went, wafting as strong as any young girl’s zealous application of her favorite perfume…it seemed as though a vial of it were being poured out from the heavens, and I breathed it in as I went.
After that time, I found that in the midst of my busy life, Suddenlys occurred…Suddenly when I was doing one thing… I would be drawn into another. Suddenly & often. And I began to set aside what I was doing, to take the five minutes to reply to a text now instead of later & by the spirit of God in me, suddenly hearing the thoughts & feeling the emotions of another that I might reach out to them.

And ten or fifteen more minutes in the grocery store when the woman who I passed in the aisle & said hi to, stopped her cart & within moments shared her grieving heart. It was who told her sister not to go to the doctor, “it was nothing,” but now she was gone, a few months had taken her…so with my heart feeling the pain of hers, I prayed with her to know the God of all Comfort’s ease in her own heart.

An hour on the phone answering questions when I should have been doing my course work, more talking rather than sleeping when fear & anxiety knocked on someones door just as they were trying to get some rest–on and on they’ve come… these “inconveniences”.

I didnt always yeild myself so willingly….I debated & ignored on occasion. Once out walking on the golf course, I noticed a man who seemed to have a brace on his knee. I was contemplating praying for him for healing as I spied him out, when I heard the Lord whisper- ‘Go over there, ‘I peered safely from a distance a moment longer & then asked increduously, “Is that a Prostheses!?,” and froze. Again I heard Him softly whisper; this time saying; ‘Go home daughter”, and heart heavy, I did, again regretting my selfish choice….

Another time , I’d awkwardly left the middle of worship practice when a lady came in at nine-thirty am before the service saying; “Can you take me to emergency? I don’t feel well at all,” and then having sat beside the gurney praying, thinking to God, “THIS is Real Christianity isnt it?”

Remembering this occasion amidst others caused me to begin to understand; All those incidences were part of experiencing Oneness with God. They were the reason for His question “Are you to be inconvenienced?” Through every incident His Will & Compassion were molding mine to His. When I objected, I had an acute awareness of being out of synch with His desires; when I reached out, life & love flowed to the hurting, Two hearts beat as one, His will became my will, His compassion- my compassion, His being-my being, His thoughts-my thoughts and even unto My voice being as His voice, My hands-His hands in Healing,  a Beautiful Partnering & Exchange as I began to know in a fuller sense what it is to be One with God.

1Corinthians 6: 17 But he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit (with Him) . As I yielded my will to His, amazing things began to happen… People we’re becoming whole, suddenly! I was recieving feedback. A young woman who complained of feminine issues reported back the next day the issue stopped! I had simply said; Oh thats just not right! pointed at her feminine parts and said; Just stop it right now!” … and, it did. Our lizards lumps “that lizzards don’t get” dried up & left in the order they came as my son & I persisted insisting that they “Go!” They come more frequently now, reports of the Lord’s goodness, as I experience what it is to be one spirit with Him.

Most often these encounters no longer feel like an inconvenience; my heart leaps at the chance to share the goodness of a God who desires to intimately be One with people, giving His strength to our weakness & wholeness & beauty where pain has ravaged the landscapes of our being, spirit, soul and body. It turns out the inconvenience is really an honor.

Then the King will say to them,  “In solemn truth I tell you that in so far as you rendered such services( visiting, feeding, sheltering, clothing, healing etc) to one of the humblest of these my brethren, you rendered them to myself.” Likewise, “in solemn truth in so far as you withheld such services from one of the humblest of these, you withheld them from me.” Matt. 25:40+

How closely He identifies Himself with us, and how closely we can identify with Him, if we are willing to be inconvenienced…..if we are willing to experience our being One….

Experiencing Oneness

CHRIST IS

a Beautiful meditation by Kat Huff: CHRIST IS.

The Incorruptible Seed of Love

Reborn of Incorruptible Seed…

We are “Reborn” by the incorruptible seed of Love- not of human will, not of a mans desire or woman’s, but we are born of God, of His will, and receive the Fathers nature- His Divine Nature Attributes, the DNA of our heavenly Father- We recieve an incorruptible nature…

James 1:17 Every gift which is good, and every perfect boon, is from above, and comes down from the **Father, who is the source of all Light. In Him there is no variation nor the slightest suggestion of change.***

1John 1: 12 But all who have received Him, to them–that is, to those who trust in His name–He has given the privilege of becoming children of God; 13 who were begotten as such not by human descent, nor through an impulse of their own nature, nor through the will of a human father, but from God.

1Peter 1:23  For you have been begotten again by God’s ever-living and enduring word from a germ not of perishable, but of imperishable life.

1 P3:4….be a new nature within–the imperishable ornament of a gentle and peaceful spirit, which is indeed precious in the sight of God.

John 3:6 That which has been born out of the flesh is flesh and by nature, fleshly. And that which has been *born out of the Spirit, is spirit, and *by nature*, spiritual.

1 Peter 4:5 Above all continue to love one another fervently, for love throws a veil over a multitude of faults.

1 John 4:18  And, as for us, we know the love which God has for us, and we confide in it. God is love, and he who continues to love continues in union with God, and God continues in union with him. 17 Our love will be manifested in all its perfection by our having complete confidence on the day of the Judgement; because just what He is, we also are in the world. 18 Love has in it no element of fear; but perfect love drives away fear, because fear involves pain, and if a man gives way to fear, there is something imperfect in his love. 19 We love because God first loved us.

This new nature is a Love Nature, a self denying, other preserving nature.

We have been reborn, the old nature with its unnatural ways is dead, a new life has com. Therefore let us pursue love, for it is our very nature and is incorruptible and remaining pure and selfless. All other ways become unnatural to us, they begin to feel uncomfortable & at odds with our new nature, and we put them off. What once seemed natural becomes disturbing to us, foreign even-these deeds and ways that used to be our nature, no longer are our DNA, and because our being will function according to our DNA, we may put off and count foreign these old ways of being, and put on the new man-alive & reborn in the power of Love.
We have become Love, it is our nature. We cannot help but act in love, because Love is who we are….born of Love, begets Love, the incorruptible seed…

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Untouchable:Transcending Death and Fear

What is your greatest hope? What would you do in this earth if you knew no fear ? What if you could never really die? & What IF you REALLY LIVED?

For fear of death, men searched out Life,

Legends of Fountains of Youth, and a Cup of the Holy Grail have expressed mans acute awareness that we were created for Life Eternally,…but have tasted of death.

We first become conscious of fear when we first experience deaths sting in various forms: doubt, pain, anger, betrayal.

We’ve political fears, financial fears, future fears,& past fears, fears of iving, fears of dying, fears of Hellos, fears of Goodbyes…fears of every kind….

Every Fear known by man begins in Fear of Death.

Fear is the first mentioned experience of Unbelief towards the ONE Who IS Himself, LIFE & LOVE.

Before mankind knew anything apart from love, we were told :

” IF you choose to Believe Me, we are One, and you will Live, the Life in me, in you also.

OR
There’s a natural alternative- one experienced by unbelief, as a fearful sense of separateness….of powerlessness.
IN HIS Incredible Love, God answered our fears of Death with Life: His Own life.

So He came clothed in mortal flesh, like us,

so we could become like him, once again; Mortality putting on Immortality, Life Swallowing up Death.

These verses share this reality with us:

“Since then the children referred to, are all alike sharers in perishable human nature, He Himself also, in the same way, took on Him a share of it, in order that THROUGH DEATH, He might render POWERLESS him who HAD Authority Over Death, that is, the devil, 15 and might SET AT LIBERTY all those who Through FEAR of DEATH had been subject to LIFELONG SLAVERY. 18 For inasmuch as He has Himself felt the pain of temptation and trial, He is also Able instantly to help those who are tempted and tried.” Hebrews 2:14-18

“Love has in it no element of fear; but Perfect love drives away fear, because fear involves PAIN, and if a man gives way to fear, there is something imperfect in his love.” 1 John 4:18

“For (believing on Jesus) you did not receive a spirit of slavery again with resulting fear, (or as another version says: you did not for a second time acquire the consciousness of being: a consciousness(awareness) which fills you with terror) BUT You Have received the Spirit who places you as adult sons (heirs of promise), by whom we cry out with deep emotion, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit himself is constantly bearing joint-testimony with our [human] spirit that we are God’s children”. Romans 8:15

See, Jesus didn’t teach what & how to ‘heal’ or bring ‘deliverance’ so much as He taught WHO

Union with Father God is Having Life. Union with God makes man FULLY ALIVE, not only in the afterlife; but right now.

So for example: when we Choose Belief, in place of unbelief, the Life of Ages Enters our Spirit, we REVIVE IN Salvation’s Deliverance, mortality becomes immortality, our spirit is made alive to God, we are Transferred from death to life.

When His Life flows to our Mind Will & Emotions,, we receive the Power of Renewal & experience freedom of Life!

When we lay hands on the sick, His LIFE flows into bodies, overwhelming deaths effects, & we experience healing.

Any aspect of our lives that operates in Fear of death’s Shadow,  simply isn’t Yet Experiencing FULLY the Life of God.

It’s believing the One who promised is faithful To deliver, that causes us to experience His Life!! John 10:10

Where has fear of death been tempting you to taste of it? Where has He been asking us to believe Him over experience?

Whatever you feel is your need, In the words of our savior Jesus:” Dont be afraid, just believe.”

RECEIVE HIS LIFE.

I Cor:11 23 the Lord Jesus on the night during which He was being Betrayed, took bread, 24 and having given thanks, He broke it and said, This is my body which is [given] on your behalf. This be doing with a view to remembering me.

Meaning

[ that which I’ve done for you in love, which is true and to be believed and not false and not to be believed]

25 In like manner also He took the cup after the partaking of the food, saying, This cup is the covenant new in its nature, a covenant which is within the sphere of my blood. This be doing as often as you are drinking it, with a view to remembering me

For as often as you are eating this bread and drinking this cup,
the death of the Lord you are proclaiming until that time whenever He may come.

***key: by proclaiming His death,  we are announcing and demonstrating in faith to All the powers that be, & to Ourselves, that the POWER of death no longer has any dominion over us, that Jesus took back the keys of death and hades, we are Raised to New Life, we will no longer give in to fear! But being constantly led & believing, trusting in the power of Gods Life within us & love for us, and we can shout

“Death has been Swallowed up by VICTORY, where oh death is Your victory, where o death is your sting?”‘ :1 Cor. 15: 53-55

For if He didnt come in the flesh and die, then the rest isnt true either- His ressurection and ours to Life Eternally. But it is true, as history proves, and our living depends on believing.

1 John 5:4 …because everything that has been born of God is constantly coming off victorious over the world. And this is the victory that has come off victorious over the world, our faith

The power of believing His love for us, is the power of Life. His body was given for us for our healing, and His blood poured out for mankind, the true “Fountain of Life, the Cup of the Holy Grail”, removes the records of mans failings, upon their putting their trust for life in Jesus.

John 6:39 And this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it to life on the last day. 40 For this is my Father’s will, that every one who fixes his gaze on the Son of God and believes in Him should have the Life of the Ages, and I will raise him to life on the last day.”

John 11:25 Jesus said (to her), I myself am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even if he die, shall live. 26 And everyone who lives and believes on me shall positively never die. Do you believe this?

Revelations1:17 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as if I were dead. But He laid His right hand upon me and said, “Do not be afraid: I am the First and the Last, and the ever-living One. 18 I died; but I am now alive until the Ages of the Ages, and I have the keys of the gates of Death and of Hades! 

Untouchable the life blood and body of Jesus Christ makes us untouchable, It makes us eternally alive, full of the very Life of God and we need never Walk this world in fear again..

I Leave you with the words of the Father, ” Dont be afraid Little Flock, it is My Pleasure to give you the kingdom. Luke: 12:32