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There are things in our lives that the Lord wants us to be forever free from.

We are sometimes aware of these things and sometimes blind to them, whether they be specific unhealthy relationships, old mindsets, or old behaviors and vices.

God’s heart for you to be set free is so intense and there is good reason why.

Because finding true freedom from these chains brings life back into us, real life.

His desire for you to live free from the things that seek to entangle and choke you will, not surprisingly, allow you to enter into situations meant to bring to the surface such strongholds making you aware of what needs to be removed and dealt with.

We want to be delivered out of tough situations and God wants that for us as well. He desires to set us free and for us to learn how not to walk back into those entanglements again.

If we believe we are in a tough situation, treated badly by others, or are tied to certain wrong behaviors and beliefs because we think we deserve them and that is who we are, then our freedom is lost in that faulty mindset. 

Our freedom has been won and fought hard for by the Lord, so why do we not live out that freedom in our daily lives?

Walking in the freedom that He has given us is a process of growth on our part. As we latch onto the truth that we have the mind of Christ and we allow our minds to be continually renewed by His Word, then our freedom is manifested more and more.

A lot of us have given up on this freedom we have in Christ because the journey towards manifesting it in our lives is longer than we expected, and because we sadly do not believe that the Lord wants us free.

But He does. 

He wants your freedom to become a real part of your life more than you realize. 

When we begin to believe that God wants us free, and I mean truly free, then we discover so much about His heart and love for us. 

We have been made free in Jesus. He bought our freedom and freely gave it to us. We do not have to work for it, but simply walk in it and believe Him and what He did for us.

Paul talks a lot about the freedom we have in Christ in the New Testament. And he also warns us to not make ourselves slaves again to anyone, to any false mindset, and to any sin.

You are free. Nothing holds you down. And if you feel enslaved by anything, any situation, anyone, or any mindset then know that is a lie coming from the enemy. 

God wants you to be forever free in Him. Free from sin, free from beliefs that are not of Him, and free from those that harm you. Believe this truth that He wants your freedom even more than you do.

In this sixth vlog on my mental health journey, I will be continuing to touch on the Lord breaking up my foundation, and how He revealed to me through several dreams what He was about to do and allow to happen in my life for that process to take place. God breaks up our foundation in order to rebuild it up again in Him! Let this encourage you if you are walking through your own storm in life and know that there is purpose in it.

Here is part 2 of my recent “uncut” video! This video and blog post below all came out of a dream I had, shared in part 1, where the Lord showed me how our worship and praise of Him is literally a weapon against the enemy. I continue to share more on our spiritual armor and how to keep it on us through our individual spiritual practices and pursuit of the Lord. Be blessed Friends!

Blog Article Here:

“Our Weapons”  https://thebarbes.com/our-weapons/

 

The Lord is wanting us to make more room for Him in our lives and in our hearts.

He is moving us towards being prepared for more souls being saved, more lives being changed, and more hearts receiving healing.

However, in order for us to be a part of what He is doing and is about to do, we need to be ready ourselves for such a move of Him.

Making more room for God in our lives translates to putting aside our selfish desires, our idols we have upheld instead of Him, and becoming a child of God that pursues Him wholeheartedly.

This is the activity He is calling us to while we wait on Him to move in a mighty and holy way.

Keeping our hearts free from this world is a work that must be intentional.

If we took time to think about what hinders our closeness with the Lord, whether they be bad habits or even good things, and we put them aside while at the same time putting our energy into seeking Him, we will find that we have begun the process of making more room for Him.

An idol in this context simply means putting anything, anyone or any activity above the Lord within your heart.

When we struggle and we seek comfort in anything else besides going to Him, this can be telling of our hearts and of our lack of love for Him.

This pursuit of Him and holiness also walks a fine line with becoming self righteous and living out a works based salvation. So in order to be free from those strongholds, continue to ask the Lord to check the motives of your heart while you pursue after Him.

There are countless believers that “appear to pursue” Him, but only for a show before others, or for what they can gain from God. Some, in their pursuit of righteousness, begin to have thoughts that they are better than those that are not pursuing God as hard. Still others are trapped in a works based salvation because they cannot freely receive what the Lord has given them and they feel a need to work for it through doing good. Yet, God sees right through these wrong motives and knows the pursuit of Him is not pure in heart.

Making room for the Lord within us requires an abandoning of anything that holds us back from knowing Him, from fully obeying Him, and from allowing our love for Him to deepen.

This is the sanctification process, the process of being made holy and set apart for God. If you have salvation in Christ, you have been justified. But allowing the Lord to uproot out of you those fleshly parts of you and those worldly mindsets is allowing Him to bring you more to maturity. This is sanctification.

A lot of believers walk around content with being made justified alone, being made righteous in the sight of God through Jesus, yet they refuse to allow God to work on their hearts and minds and remain just as they were when they first believed.

But there is so much more to our Christian life than just that first step of receiving salvation. There is a relationship the Lord wants us to have with Him that is real and deep and that brings us the heart and life change He promises in His Word.

Let me challenge you today friend, to make more room for the Lord in your life.

In this fifth vlog on my mental health journey, I will be sharing with you how as a result of witnessing the Lord heal a young woman in a nearby hospital from a blood disease, I gave God full permission to break up my faulty foundation of beliefs. Having a heart that is purely bent on knowing Christ more will ultimately lead us to yielding to how the Lord wants to work in our hearts and lives.. and all for His glory!

In this “uncut” video, I am sharing a dream the Lord gave me several years back that showed me the power of our praise and worship within spiritual warfare. I am also sharing an encouraging word I wrote on the importance of being consistent with our spiritual practices. This is only part 1, so be sure to catch part 2 as I go deeper on the subject of the armor of God!

Blog Article Here:

“Our Weapons”  https://thebarbes.com/our-weapons/

I had a dream the other night where a young man by the name of Caleb described to me in great detail three different false spirits that came to entice him to follow them. He was very specific about these false spirits parading around as angels from God’s Kingdom. They were deceptive in nature and were sent to bring believers confusion and to lead them astray.  His tone was clearly that of a warning.

Immediately after I heard him give me this warning, I was literally visited by one of these false spirits within a separate dream. I had a full awareness of what was going on in the dream after having been warned. I had keen discernment from the Holy Spirit within the dream and upon waking up.

I cried out the name of Jesus and my husband heard me shouting and woke me up. 

I felt that false spirit in our bedroom, the same one attacking me in my dream. I commanded it to leave in the name of Jesus and it did. This false spirit realized it was found out, that it’s deception was uncovered and it fled. 

I share this dream to not frighten anyone. We have no reason to be afraid of these agents of the enemy, and I can assure you the power of our Lord Jesus is much greater than them all.

This false spirit had to respond to the name of Jesus and it did.

In the past, I would have been terrified by this experience. And I would have allowed this experience to put me in a fearful frame of mind and full of doubt. To be honest, I would have also taken it personal that the Lord would allow this to happen to me.

But much has changed since then.

The Lord has taught me a great deal concerning spiritual warfare and He has uprooted out of me teachings and beliefs that were not correct. And each attack I’ve endured has only granted me opportunity to learn more about our spiritual foes and how to guard myself against them.

I had another dream that same night of the Lord uncovering deception. And as I reflected back on these two dreams, journaling about them and listening to the voice of the Lord, I heard Him tell me that we are about to see Him uncover deception more and more around us and in our nation.

The best part of my first dream was how the Holy Spirit not only gave me a warning before the attack by the false spirit, but that He was giving me keen discernment with what was going on while within the attack and thus uncovering for me its deception. I had no confusion, I had no doubt and the momentary fear I felt melted away within me as the Spirit gave me understanding.

Understanding and clarity by His voice is empowering and gives us much confidence in Him with how to respond to different situations in our lives. We need discernment on a greater level with all that is going on in this season, both in the natural and spirit realm.

And the Lord is bringing that discernment to those seeking Him for it. 

Ask the Lord for discernment, for His wisdom and understanding. Ask Him to remove any deception that is keeping you from seeing what really is taking place. Ask Him to give you eyes to see in the spirit realm through dreams and visions to discern those spiritual attacks as well.

My dream given by the Lord not only warned me of the attack, but it provided me understanding and I was not caught off guard. 

The young man in my dream was named Caleb. Now I have to share what the name Caleb means in Hebrew. It means, “whole hearted.” 

And then I heard the Lord say it takes a “whole hearted” love and devotion to God to be able to discern well. And Caleb in my dream was able to specifically describe the false spirits that came up against him. 

If we are to be ever so discerning, we need to be fully “whole hearted” in our pursuit and devotion of the Lord. When you pursue God, you learn much about Him, His voice, His ways, His character and His Word.

Anything else that comes to try and pull you astray can be easily discerned when you know the Lord so well. It will contradict God in some way or form and you will be able to pick up on this and reject it.

Welcome to Vlog 4 of my mental health journey…

In this fourth vlog on my mental health journey, I will be sharing with you how the Lord showed up when my friends and I prayed for a young woman to be healed of a blood disease in a nearby hospital. Jesus met me personally on a deeper level in response to my obedience to Him, and He met this woman as well! This miracle put me on a path in my walk with Jesus that I have yet to regret.

Bible Drill Jill has put together a new video for you! She has learned the art of bird watching and is eager to share with you her new hobby.

Enjoy and happy bird watching!

The Lord wants His children to learn how to view their lives and circumstances through His eyes and His perspective. 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

When God tells us that His ways and thoughts are higher than ours, He also gives an invitation for us to seek after what those thoughts and ways are. His heart is not for us to remain ignorant of His ways, but to pursue Him in relationship in order to learn more about them.

God wants to show us what He sees, what He feels, and what He plans for this world and the people living in it. 

There are mysteries He wants to reveal and secrets He wants to unveil. 

But these are gifted to us through relationship with Him.

Once we learn how to gain His perspective, a heavenly and everlasting perspective, on our lives, will we then be able to rise above our individual situations. And the worries and warfare attempting to stop us in our tracks begin to become irrelevant. 

If our focus fixes on Jesus, on His goodness and kindness and compassion, then the messiness before us can no longer keep its hold on us.

God is calling you up to where He is seated. He longs for you to see what He sees about you and your life. He wants you to receive His thoughts about you and making them your own. He desires to show you how He sees the world and others around you as well.

When we see with His eyes, our perspective truly changes. 

We begin to see people the way He sees them and we begin to see past the mere circumstances we live in and peak into what is taking place behind the scenes.

We are awakened to a reality where we can fully recognize that we are not alone. We have been given heavenly help and the Lord Himself stands with us.