DIVISION OR UNITY?

WILL WE CHOOSE DIVISION OR UNITY?

DIVISION?

The enemy has been trying so hard in our families, cities, regions, and nation to separate the connections the Father is making between His kids, husband and wives, parents and their children, nationalities, businessmen and women, ministers, and governmental leaders! 

I am determined to break the spirit that tries to separate men and women, husbands and wives, parents and children, family and friends.  This spirit wants to separate us through judgements. Judging one another's relationships based on where we live geographically, our financial status, who we vote for, where we go to worship, who we love and support, who we are or who we are married to, what we wear, the color of our skin, or what doctrine we preach!

Let me say straight out my dear friends and family. I feel many of your tender hearts are also breaking with these things from your own life experiences.

Part of my assignment in this season is to break the spirits of division, rejection and divorce, and to release the spirit of reconciliation! Much of this is done through prayer and intercession. It is also done through the hard and humbling one on one contact with those who have actively been a part of my own pain, or I theirs.

I can hide behind my call to pray, but I must put actions to my prayers when Holy Spirit reveals an issue I haven’t dealt with.

Not fun! But oh, so freeing!

Our lives, families and churches are full of broken relationships and deep, deep grief over the loss of these relationships because we have had to step out, move on and follow the sweet tender leading of Holy Spirit in a different direction than others who love us. Opening or closing businesses, moving to new neighborhoods, excepting new positions, assignments or jobs, changing churches, leaving home and establishing a new stage in life are all extremely hard.

Many times we have fallen prey to judgement, separation from fellowship, and broken ties with those we love and who have professed their acceptance and love for use. Because of their obedience to their convictions and call, we sometimes have judged one another based on our feelings, who we were most loyal to, or who put the most pressure on us to follow them.

Our judgements of one another's behavior or decisions, has inflicted greater wounds that have divided families, and relationships breeding disunity. While filtering the liberty of another through our own wounding or experiences we have ignorantly or knowingly divided or cut off contact with those who needed us the most. Thinking our decisions will manipulate them into complying with our opinions or beliefs. While only adding to the confusion and pain of both of us.

Or even more damning we have taken our opinions, jealousies, envies, hurt feelings, differences and tried to get others to agree with our assessment of an opinion, observation, or even a truth. We have in our immaturity, tried to change the behavior of another by distancing ourselves or cutting off relationships with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends, because we can no longer live peacefully with the choices we have made. We have found it easier to leave the relationship than to humble ourselves and work together through the diversity of choices that make us who we are today. 

We look for agreement and validation to support our side of things. In doing so, we put others that are innocent in the position to have to war with the he said, she said, mess we vomit out to who ever will listen. We submit, attract and release demonic spirits that will go forth and continue to generate strife, debate, and division. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. The enemy loves when we involve others in our war with our truth and the messy journey we take to get to the imagined destination. 

Father forgive us!

Open our eyes to see every person from Your perspective. Not my interpretation of their compliance with the limited understanding I have of You or Your word! Father forgive me for filtering another's liberty through my bondage. Father teach us the difference in lovingly guiding someone back from a path of possible destruction, through our prayers and intercessions over them. Instead of judging by filtering our differences through our limited understanding of You and Your word! Father teach us to love unconditionally. Help me to see I am not the voice of conviction, Holy Spirit is. He is more than able to reach into my darkness, illuminate my understanding and grant me the grace and mercy to turn and move in another direction. Father help us to choose love and maturity over the immaturity of jealousy, competition, strife, and debate.

My heart grieves for the wounds inflicted on Gods people when splits, separations, divorce, circumstances and differences in life choices and assignments give way to judgements, broken friendships and fellowship! We justify our judgement of another by saying we are fruit inspectors.

I only have the authority to inspect the trees that are mine. Your garden or orchard are not the place of my authority. Invited in and ask for an opinion or advice then brings me to a place of humbly being able to share what ever I may be doing that has worked for me. Being offended when another doesn't chose the advice or opinion I may give, even when ask for, is immaturity and it can lead to the proven display of that immaturity. When I throw myself on the floor, crying loudly, kicking and screaming, because I didn't get them to do things my way.

I detest the spirits of division, jealousy, strife, isolation, self doubt, insecurity, and fear of rejection or judgement that influences our emotions when we see or speak to a dear friend we have been in family or church relationship with for years. Family or friends that have for what ever reason needed to move into a new location in their lives, but have not moved from our shared space. I hate the awkward space in the very atmosphere of the room. When two or more people with different opinions, or methods of doing the same thing come together in the same room or location. I hate when we submit to division and allow that division to dictate if I stay in a family or have to leave because of the influence of the enemy, working on me and those around me to bring division. 

It breaks my heart when friends and family members stop communicating with one another because of DIVORCE. Not just marital divorce, with the dictionary definition of: "to break the marriage contract between oneself and (one's spouse) by divorce"  but the divorce that we enter when one leaves our church, business, circle of friends or family, the one that under the same definition:" total separation, disunion: a divorce between thought and action." (Web Dictionary)

We have given up human treasures in our lives through separation  and disunion, of thought and action.

We have divorced lifelong friends(or they us)because we have made choices to followed the voice of the Father into new places with Him. We have separated fellowship from one another because of our interpretation of words spoken, or actions taken. We have created a playground for the enemy of our souls to come and erect new equipment for him to play on. If that wasn't bad enough we invite our friends and family to join in our opinions and judgements and throw a party to celebrate our delusional win. My heart cries out for deliverance for God’s people! We need a deep cleansing, and healing from our past.

I cannot get you healed from your past. You cannot heal me. We can support one another as we each one individually decides where we need to adjust our differences and judgement of one another.

Even God can't heal me if in fact I refuse to acknowledge my wounds and submit to the process of healing!

Even God can't heal me if in fact I refuse to acknowledge my wounds and submit to the process of healing. There are many loving Spirit filled men and women who are gifted and trained in the ministry ofl helps for inner healing. They cannot heal you. They can sit with you, love and support you while you share your version of an event, they can ask the hard questions and allow you a safe place to unpack your offenses, wounds and pain. But they cannot heal you! Only you can deside to let the offense which has dug into tender places go and allow for the wound created to have time to heal.

I believe that until my determination to be delivered from the bondage of my emotional pain becomes greater than my fear of exposure I will never be free.

I believe that until my determination to be delivered from the bondage of my emotional pain becomes greater than my fear of exposure I will never be free. The amazing thing about Holy Spirit is that He will not take you where you are unwilling to go. But He will stay with you until you are willing and then go there with you. I don't believe that we have to go sit with another person and pour out all our dirty little secrets. I believe that self deliverance is the best and most effective method of healing emotional wounds and pain. Do I believe in seeking out those who are qualified and can be trusted to help me go there? Yes, a million times yes. I have in my past and will continue to go there!

I believe self deliverance is when I allow Holy Spirit to bring to my remembrance or attention anything that triggers a negative thought, feeling, or emotional response. Holy Spirit will require total honesty from me. He doesn't want my Biblical version. He wants my gut honest feelings and emotions.  Remember He was there when the event took place. He knows what happened, from all perspectives. He knows what you were feeling and how you interpreted the events or actions. He also knows the things we have forgotten and will remind us of those as well. He knows what the one who offended, abused, or wounded you was thinking and feeling. He will lead and guide you into the whole truth of the situation, not just the details. He will help you to see the emotional aspects of it and as you forgive and release the right to be angry or offended He will deliver you from the weight of the situation. You are not rendering the abuser or offender right in their choice! You are removing the chains of emotional bondage the event has but on you! You will no longer be their slave in your own mind because whom the Son sets free is free in their deeds!

Holy Spirit together with Father God, and Jesus know the thoughts and intent of the heart or beliefs and motives of all involved. I have no authority to fix them. Nor do They, unless, the ones involved do the hard and messy work of reviewing the event through the eyes of one who knows all. You don't have to wait on them to repent to be free. You go as an intercessor before God and release them to the Holy Spirit to start the process of allowing for their release in their own minds and emotions. If they never change, get caught, or repent openly. That is not my business. They belong to God not me.

Holy Spirit can and will deliver me, as I forgive them and release them from the emotional struggles their behavior has caused me!

If my determination to prove myself right and another wrong is my motive for coming to a minister or counselor to help guide me through this situation. In my opinion, if I have a truly Spirit lead person helping me, I just may leave with the feeling of one more against me than was for me when I came into the session.

If my determination is to be free, totally free, and whole spirit, soul and body. Then I will leave that same Spirit lead person feeling that I have made a new friend that loves me enough to point out where I may be blind to my own childish ways.

                                              UNITY?

No matter the issues that try to divide us they all lead back to only one place. Family! God created family in the beginning. Our feelings and opinions are developed by our exposure to family on different levels and by different exposures.

All family are not biologically connected, but still family. No matter if you are adopted, abandoned, fostered, orphaned, have a work family, a church family, a neighborhood family, we all have different levels, understandings, and interactions with family.

We live through different stages of experiences with those categories of family as well. Sometimes we are not estranged from our bio-family, but live at a distance that doesn't allow for us to receive what we need from them. Sometimes we are estranged from bio-family and we seek out others to fill the void of Mother or Father, sisters and brothers. Most of us are fiercely protective of our families and will not hesitate to defend them if we feel the need to do so. Sometimes we will defend their faults and deeds instead of calling them on their behavior. Sometimes we will judge them harshly by our own standard.

We just may be the hardest on our church families. We expect them to be perfect according to our interpretation of the Word we know. While expecting mercy and grace on our own short comings. We use the Bible to prove they are wrong and we are right, expecting everyone else in the family to see it our way. We sometimes choose sides,  sometimes we hide, sometimes we go looking for the other side to feed our own spirit of drama, sometimes we listen and then go to other family members breaking a confidence and share the things we were trusted with, sometimes we are baited by others and slip up and say things that were to be kept secret, sometimes we isolate ourselves to stay away from the division, sometimes we are grieved and try to bring reconciliation. No matter what our choice is there will always be someone else who would do it differently and will not hesitate to tell you or 17 of their closest friends about what you have done.

Sadly we in families usually create more wounds than we dress and help to heal.

We pry and open old wounds insisting that we have a right to know the details of an event that we weren't even present for. Or we are determined to defend ourselves if we think the one we are speaking to may have had opportunity to talk to the one we are at odds with. We are sadly immature and honestly we can be rather bratty!

We need the fire of His presence to cauterize our wounded places and stop the bleeding out! We need the compassion of Jesus to flow over us and break our self protection, we need the Holy Spirit boldness to rise up in us to actually go and be reconciled to one another. We need the maturity to refuse to speak on a matter we know nothing about. We need to refuse to look on another's nakedness, refuse to laugh at their drunkenness, refuse to rejoice at their sorrow, as two of Noah's sons did for him.

We need the God who is LOVE to manifest...

We need the God who is LOVE to manifest His love to us so we can allow it to flow from us to ALL those around us who are wounded and hurting! Not just the ones we like, who go to my church, who work next to me at my job, who belong to my social group or are my family members!

This city and region is overflowing with men and women of God, named or unnamed who are reeling from the rejection of other men and women of God. Who because of petty differences, strife, jeolousies, and competition, have separated from one another and divorced their friendships, and relationships. They all love God, they all hear from God, they all are following the call of God on their lives as they understand it. We sometimes just refuse to realize there is room in the sandbox for all of God's kids.

What we preach from the livingrooms and the pulpits to our choosen peeps needs to be exhibited. Not just given lip service. The old do what I say and not what I do has never worked, except when one bigger and stronger than us bullies us into submission. 

What we are just now discovering is that our past adolescent behavior cannot continue. We as the Body of Christ, being many individuals with Christ Jesus as the head, must lay aside our fears, rejections, and hurts. We must with true heart repentance turn and stop trying to gather a bully mob to follow my opinion or belief. We must stop judging one another because of sex, race, church affiliation, political positions, or any other difference. I am not saying to not recognize our differences. That is what makes us God designed and unique. I am saying we need to stop and just except one another as human beings created in the image of God!

Differences are what makes us God designed and unique!

We have to start taking the time to communicate and have mature conversations with one another about what we don’t understand about them. Not attacking with the intent to convert another to my way of thinking. That is control and manipulation and as I see it witchcraft. Or better yet, why can’t we just except them for who they are. I can’t change your eye color, skin color, sex or age! So why do we think we should try to change things in others that may be different from my choices, convictions and beliefs?The changes I may be seeking, could already be the foundation of that persons life and beliefs. But I have not taken the time to see their words in light of their whole person.

I believe that if I will live my life as unto the Lord. To the best of my understanding and developed personal relationship with Him. Then my inward man will show up on the out side in my actions and deeds. Will everyone like me? Absolutely not! Will my reputation go before me and make room for me in my daily life? Yes! Will everyone I know and love in this life love me and think I am doing everything right? Nope!

But, I will have relationships that will enhance my life, develop character and integrity in me and make room for me before the men or women I am to be connected to. More importantly I will have the favor and love of Father God. He will be proud of me, not because I am perfect and do all things correctly toward men. But because I love people not after my own judgements but through His eyes.

Isn’t it time to become adults in all our scopes of influence? Isn’t it time to put aside our judgements of others and just LOVE like God loves? How does God love you might ask?

Read The Old Testament and see how God responded to His people in history past. Read the New Testament and see how and why He sent Jesus. He made a better way than through the blood of bulls and goats. Read how to practically live in this daily life loving as Jesus loved, doing what Jesus did.

Read the scriptures, have a personal conversation with Father God, ask Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to you and what that means in our present day reality. I promise if you will ask, and keep on asking, if you will seek and keep on seeking, He will answer and keep on speaking into your reality, with things so simple but so life changing we will be in shock and awe at His love for us.

What would happen in families and especially the family of God if we treated one another as if they had no sin? What would we feel if others saw us as God does, forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross? What would we be delivered from if we just cleaned our own house and left the hidden lives of others alone? What would happen if I reacted to each person I met with the understanding they were the family of Jesus and a part of His body? 

Would I be changed? Would I suddenly have no need to change others? Would I be free to walk humbly before my God without judgement? 

I don't know what the answer to all of these questions are. But I know the One who can answer them. I want to try to live my life realizing that all mankind is the creation of God, they came from His heart of love, just as I did. 

I want to spend more time being God's love in demonstration. Not checking out the liberty of my family or neighbors. Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, because God was with Him! I don't know about you but I'm not even coming close to the things Jesus did, and to do the greater things may take more earthly time than I have. This one thing I know is I want to be found trying to imitate Jesus instead of focusing on what someone else's score card looks like. Don't you?