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I had a dream where I was observing a gathering of church members worshiping together. However, this large area we were all inside of was dark and eerie. Then I looked up and flying above us all were a handful of literal witches on broomsticks shouting over the crowd. I heard one yell out a new law for the church to follow and if they didn’t God would shun them. Fear broke out across this audience, but not a reverent fear. A fear that was demonically influenced and that woke me up from the dream.

Immediately, I heard the Spirit tell me what that dream meant. He was showing me how some in the believing church have created for themselves their own altar to a god they have in their mind. A god that is NOT the same God in our Bible. Because they have created for themselves this false altar to a false god, they have opened themselves up to witchcraft. They are in bondage to this witchcraft and live out of fear because their understanding of God is not true.

The Lord then reminded me of an experience I had one time worshiping Him at an altar during a retreat I was attending. He reminded me of another lady who was literally sitting beside me in worship, but was being attacked with condemnation and lies. I comforted her and corrected what was being thrown at her. It was strange to me because I was feeling the presence of God powerfully and she was being attacked so horribly. How could that be? How could two different dynamics take place in the same place?

God showed me that even though we were at the same altar in the natural worshiping Him, and because of her idea of who He was from false teaching she had received, she was at another altar in her heart that was not the true altar of Him. Therefore she was under attack.

This is a hard word to share. It’s convicting and also alarming. I know.

God sees these false altars created by man to make themselves feel comfortable and feel not convicted of their sin. He also sees other false altars created through a religious spirit that pushes people away from Him bringing guilt and condemnation. And then there are those false altars made for profit by so called preachers and prophets that seek their own gain and hurt the church on their way to fame. There are too many false altars to name here.

How do you know you are at a false altar?

When you step away from the altar there is no real change in you and your heart. Others see no change and that speaks against the true nature of God and His work.

You go to the altar out of fear and not out of love and devotion to God. You do your duty and you go on with life.. no real change takes place.

The frightening part is that witchcraft rules over your heart.. not the Lord Jesus. You are ruled by religion and it’s laws instead of God and His word. You are constantly being deceived at this false altar and it shows in your life and choices.

Some have sadly walked away from who they thought God was.. but they just walked away from a man built alter to a fake god.. an idol.. a deception. You thought God would respond to your prayers the way you wanted Him to. You treated Him like a genie in a bottle and never came to Him just to be in His presence. He didn’t meet your expectations and you walked away. But you walked away from a false altar. You’ve never learned of His True Nature and Character. You depended on church leaders to show you who God is rather than pursuing God for yourself and now you have a corrupted view of who He is. You have worshipped at a false altar.

Therefore the Lord is declaring judgement on these false altars. He is destroying them and calling people to Himself. But He wants you to find Him apart from going to church and from listening to influencing voices.. He wants you to come to Him in private first.. behind closed doors, where the altar is for Him and Him alone.

No longer will He allow growth in churches that tolerate such idolatry.. with leaders that allow these false altars to be made, some sadly building up altars for themselves instead. If you walk away from any service confused or conflicted in your spirit.. ask the Lord why. He will tell you, but you have to go to Him and be willing to hear the truth.

Churches are not gathering right now in buildings. They are empty and hollow.. but have they been empty and hollow all along? Have we been doing church and remained busy without the pursuit of God? Have we allowed ourselves to be humbled and repentant of our sins? Or are we allowing the altar of complacency to take seat in our hearts?

“The shepherds are senseless and do not inquire of the Lord; so they do not prosper and all their flock is scattered.” Jeremiah 10:21

God is a jealous God and for good reason. He will not tolerate for long the worship of idols where He belongs. We need to recommit to Him and get rid of the Asherah poles.. get rid of these false places of worship and put Him on the throne of our hearts.

“Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’ But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. Everyone is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.”

Jeremiah 10: 11-14

It was night. And I was watching a great mass of water rising next to a building, an important and old building.

Once the water reached the threshold, I immediately understood that the water represented masses of people and the water rising were all the votes for Trump being counted in his favor for President.

And then I heard the words within me, “the scales have tipped.”

Next I saw fire 🔥 appear onto the floor inside this old important building that looked like a rather large house. I tried to stamp out this small fire foolishly and I was unsuccessful, as well as, ignorant of what the fire actually was.

I saw this fire 🔥 move ahead of me a little and then something shifted from seeing reality to now seeing the situation spiritually.

Now the fire was much larger and more intense within the spirit realm. I then felt a fear come over me, but not a fear that comes from the enemy. It was a fear of God’s fiery judgement that was released on earth.

The scales tipping represented God’s timeline of judgement. Once they tipped in one direction heavily with sin and evil, God was moved to bring His judgement.

Then the fire 🔥 began to pull me towards it and I knew it meant to plummet me into a fiery lake below and beyond sight. But before that could happen I was awakened from the dream.

I literally could not move for a minute, though it felt like many minutes, from the real fear of God’s great judgement that I had just witnessed.

His glory was within this judgement. And the fear did not come from the fire itself or the thought of destruction in the fiery lake, but rather the fear came purely from an awareness of this glory of God that makes one tremble with fear.

Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28

In processing this dream, the Spirit helped me understand how God was now bringing judgement against the great evil in our nation and in our world. Their souls will have to face this fiery judgement of God and it will be terrifying for them.

God has seen the heart of the people in our nation. How they are exhausted from the corruption in our nation’s leadership. Our move to put in a leader that desires to fight against this evil has been seen by our God. This action on our part as believers in Christ, along with the constant evils being done by those corrupt and perverted in their thinking, has caused the scales to tip and has brought this timeline to a close.

Look for God’s hand of judgement against great evils and rejoice that He is acting on our behalf and His.

“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”  Matthew 12:33

In this trying hour, where many are confused and disoriented by what we see in our nation and world, there is still a godly wisdom we can gain and use to help us discern the voices around us.

Who is telling the truth, who is deceiving their audiences and who is only telling half-truths, which is also a great deception?

I used to listen to a preacher for a season and attended a two week training he hosted. But something strange was happening at this event.

The other attendees around me began feeling confused and hurt. We all felt an onslaught of spiritual attacks during our stay at this event.

Soon some of the attendees began turning on one another in the midst of the confusion, and competing for approval from this leader was strong.

I left this training having met the Lord there by His mercy, but with an awful aftertaste of the experiences I had with some of the others and this leader. It was baffling to me and I continued to pray for clarity and discernment.

I prayed for several years after this event, asking the Lord for help and insight as to what had occurred spiritually during that event. He kept telling me to look at the fruit that was produced from it and from this specific leader.

So I watched carefully with a heart to recognize what type of fruit was being produced.

It began with the leadership directly under this particular leader. Several soon left his ministry and one even publicly repented without specifics of what happened and when, but I and a few others knew what he was referencing. Another leader that had walked away shared publicly her pain from what appeared to be betrayal of leadership she had to leave behind.

And then the confusion of those that attended this event alongside of me never fully lifted for us until a couple of years later. Some of us were able to help one another bring understanding, others we never heard from again.

The fruit was clearly bad and the fruit did not lie. It produced strife within that ministry, wounds to those that trusted this ministry, and even pushed others to walk away from their faith. It was terribly sad to see the aftermath and the product of a leader that was not to be trusted.

I continued to ask the Lord why He led me to this event. I was certain without any doubt that He wanted me to be there. And as I processed what had happened, the Lord revealed to me that the multiple lessons I had personally gained was His intent. He wanted me to learn how to recognize who to trust by looking at the fruit they produced.

He also revealed to me other reasons He had me there, but I want to focus on the valuable lesson of discerning fruit.

Jesus taught us in the New Testament that there would be wolves amongst us walking around in sheep’s clothing. That should make us aware that there are those that are bad who will not be easily detected. They know how to blend in, they know how to appear as one of us, but they are not of us.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”  Matthew 7:15

For these it will be by their actions and not necessarily their words that will tell on them. 

Whenever we find ourselves confused about a certain individual we can always go back on these basic truths from our Lord. Let us look at the fruit they produce and ask the Spirit of God to confirm what kind of fruit it is. And let us be wise in who we allow ourselves to trust to listen to.

Listening to a wounded heart well can be learned.An individual that is trying to open up to you about a hurt they received is important for you to take notice. 

They are choosing to trust you with their pain. They regard you as a trustworthy individual that they can turn to for help.

A lot of us are intimidated to be that individual that a hurting person turns to for help, and that is because we do not understand what they really need and we feel inadequate to know how to help them.

More often than not, these hurting individuals want to be heard. They want their pain to be validated and they want someone to share in their grief with them.

Romans 12:15 tells us we are to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.

However, if we do not know how to mourn with those that are mourning, then we are unable to step into this truth.

I strongly believe that a huge part of mourning with those who are mourning or are grieving, is learning to listen to them and to sit with them.

There is not a lot for us to do when we sit with a wounded heart. The fixing of their heart is not our responsibility, that is the burden of the Lord.

When listening to this individual, listen intently and with compassion and empathy. 

Do not allow yourself to be distracted as they are speaking with you. And do not hurry them as they share with you.

If time is not on your side, set a specific time with them where you are able to give them your full attention and time. And share that with them. This will show them that you truly care about them and what they have to share with you.

Listening does not involve offering up your opinion or a solution. 

It does involve caring and loving this person and finding a love for them that comes from the Lord.

I try and remind myself when I have the opportunity to listen to someone else’s story, how others have listened to me and shown me great love. 

If culturally appropriate, make eye contact while they are sharing with you. And repeat to them what you have heard from them, in order to make sure you are hearing them correctly. 

And if you are asked for your opinion or advice, this is your invitation to provide that, yet do not be pressured to have an answer for them. It is okay not to know an answer. 

Always offer to pray with this individual, bringing them before the Lord and their pain as well and asking God to heal them. 

Prayer is building a relationship with our God with no strict rules we need to follow.

Our prayer times we set aside for a habitual practice to seek after the Lord, should be seen as a springboard into the rest of our day with Him. Praying in the morning puts our eyes and hearts on God.

We then go throughout our busy day, and because we have already begun a conversation with God, the pulling from the Spirit to gather our attention again is more apt to happen.

Our hearts are more sensitive to His voice and we can discern easier when He is speaking to us after already having spent time with Him in the early hours of the day.

Building a habit of prayer in our lives takes an effort to be intentional to do so.

What is not so wise, however, is when believers give up on speaking with God if they have missed out on their morning devotionals and prayer time. They feel they have missed the mark for the day and approaching Him would be pointless.

Let me encourage you to not fall into this “works based” trap. If you wake up late in the morning, or for several mornings, just choose to find another time in your day to meet with Him. God is not upset or disappointed in you.

We might be upset with ourselves, but He is not.

True, it is beneficial to start your day speaking with the Lord, but it is not a set rule in stone. Come to Him when you can and as often as you have time for. As your relationship with the Lord grows, so will your discipline of spending that time with Him.

How does being creative help improve the health of your mind?

Being creative brings us emotional joy and happiness. Working on your garden, dancing a jig, writing a story, or putting together a piece of artwork are all creative activities that bring us positive emotions.

When we find ourselves in our creative zone, a space that some psychologists call “the flow”, this pulls us from multitasking and having our attention divided, to a moment of full focus on our work in front of us. 

We forget our worries, our fears, our sadness.

We feel hope and inspiration rising within us while in our creative flow, as our actual brain waves slow down and the critical part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, has been quieted.

Without all the distractions of life bombarding us, we are able to think more clearly and creatively. And good chemicals are released in abundance in our brains!

Using your creativity will help in de-stressing, lessen anxiety and depression symptoms and improve your immune system. 

God made us creative beings. 

His creativity is always on display in His creation around us and with us. We are His creation. 

And it is no wonder that when we put our own hands to the activity of creating, that it brings us peace, healing and happiness. 

I believe it is God’s intent to use the act of creating in our lives to quiet us, in order for us to hear Him. 

When we remove stress and distractions and noise, there is a space we find ourselves in, this creative flow, that gives room for us to hear our Creator. 

Next time you choose to be creative, use it as a time for you and the Lord to create together!

Why are you procrastinating?

When I came across this question in my latest research on procrastination, I paused for a moment, realizing I had never thought to ask myself of why I was procrastinating with something.

I always summed up procrastination to being just a bad habit. And I still agree that it is a bad habit that needs to be broken and worked on, but getting to the root of why we are procrastinating in the first place intrigued me.

I thought over the possible reasons why I personally procrastinate. And I came up with reasons I had no idea were holding me back.

Reasons we procrastinate can include the following:  having abstract goals, the reward is far off in the future, feeling overwhelmed, anxiety, depression, fear of failure.. and this list definitely can go on and on.

Why we procrastinate can be answered as we look at each individual situation where we are procrastinating, and choose to dive into what is keeping us from accomplishing that goal, project, or activity.

The reason we procrastinate with doing the dishes, for example, versus the reason we are not getting our workout in could be different.

If we put out there in general why we procrastinate, then we could be avoiding the harder issues we are not facing. 

You not doing the dishes has nothing in common with your fear of failure with a work project. This avoidance of a chore could easily fall into a habit you created with procrastination, while the work project is another deeper issue altogether.

As you go throughout your week, I encourage you to ask yourself why you are procrastinating with each task you find yourself delaying to do. 

Process your answers and allow yourself time to figure out what is truly holding you back. 

Once you discover the problem or problems, then you can create a plan to work on them and move forward. 

Not taking things so personally can be done when we learn to be secure in who we are. 

When we realize our own value and worth, we will not allow others to degrade us. Sure, they might treat us bad, but we can choose to not allow their ill treatment of us to impact what we know about who we truly are.

I listened to a talk on YouTube a couple of weeks back and an illustration was made that has stuck well with me.

The speaker took out a bill. I do not recall how much the bill was, but it was a nice amount. Then he asked the audience if they would like to have the bill. They of course responded as we would expect them to with a resounding yes.

Then he did something that I would not advise anyone to do for sanitary reasons.

He crumpled up the bill and put it in his mouth. Next, he spat it out onto the stage where he was speaking from.

He then picked it up and asked the audience the same question. 

And the audience still agreed with the speaker that the bill had value. The same value it was worth prior to him treating it as he did.

He then made his point that we are like that bill. We also get treated bad much like the bill that was wadded up, chewed on and spat out.

However, even though we sometimes take the ill treatment from others as a sure sign that we must be a sort of person that deserves that treatment, the speaker reminded the audience that we are still highly valuable. 

The brain will get us to believe the lie that how we are treated defines who we are.

We need to correct this thinking. We need to know who we are, our value and our importance. We need to stop allowing how others treat us to define us. 

We need to recognize that just like a bill that was trashed and stepped on and still retains its’ value, we, too, retain ours. 

The next time someone mistreats you for any reason, remember that they do not have the privilege to shape your identity and sense of worth. 

The individual doing the mistreatment often times has the problem, not us. They need to change, we do not.

We have a responsibility to respond in a righteous way, however. We must forgive and show grace and mercy to those that do us harm. This if for our own good and keeps us free from bitterness and unforgiveness. 

I have learned an interesting thing in my approach to reaching the difficult goals I set out for myself in life. The goals that seem more challenging to attain often times, at some point, become discouraging for me to follow through with.

Why is that?

I have talked a lot about working on our understanding of our own worth and value, and this is the year that the Lord challenged me to work on my own personal understanding of this and fully embracing it.

The Lord revealed to me that it was my lack of embracing my own value that was holding me back from reaching and pursuing those goals that were a lot harder for me to put my focus on.

Reaching the vision I had in mind with my fitness goals for example, honestly, was not being attained because of my mindset. Somewhere in my subconscious I had believed a lie that being as fit as I would like was not for me at this age. (not sharing that with you here 😉 )

This particular mindset definitely reflected my struggle with my awareness of my self worth.  

Before I would be able to reach my goal, I knew I needed to work on changing my mindset by rewriting the lie I was believing about myself and turning it into a truth. 

Whether I truly believed this new truth about myself or not in the beginning was not the point.

Taking that new truth statement and choosing to believe it for myself was my next step of action. An action that I worked on as often as I was thinking about my fitness goals. 

I told myself this truth statement for months, caught the lie that kept trying to creep back into my thought cycle and fought against it. 

I was not always exercising like I should, or eating healthy in the beginning of working on changing this mindset, however, I continued to tell myself I was worth reaching the fitness goals I had set out for myself at the beginning of the year. 

Then a shift happened. 

I began to do more research on how to become healthier, how to lose those last stubborn pounds, how to break through weightless plateaus.. and soon I was ready to put into action the new truth statement my mind had finally accepted. 

When I started to see results, I was motivated to keep up my pursuit of my fitness goals. 

And then this month I accomplished what I had set out to do at the New Year.. I became stronger physically, I have the energy that I wanted, and my belief that I was worth reaching this new fit lifestyle led me to my own personal victory.

I reflected back on when the Lord told me it was a shift that needed to take place in my thinking, and I thanked Him for helping me and leading me to success. 

God cares about our physical health. He cares that we have the energy we need to do what He leads us to do in this life. He cares if we feel good about ourselves or not.

God wants us to see our value in Him.

Is your lack of understanding your value and worth and importance holding you back from something you have always wanted to pursue or be? 

I encourage you to work on seeing your value and His love for you as you pursue your goals and visions. Do not let your own mindset be what is holding you back. 

Become your own cheerleader rather than your greatest enemy.

Can the brain abandon old habits?

Yes, it most definitely can.

I have personally found, though, that it is easier to create a new habit rather than working on breaking a bad habit.

For example, I tried for years to quit drinking soda, a horrible habit I had that I wanted to end. I set up my own personal rules with when I was allowed to have a soda and when I was not. I tried limiting myself to so many soda’s in the week. I tried stopping cold turkey. All of this to no avail.

When I tried to keep away from a bad habit, my thoughts were still focused on it. And just that alone was only reinforcing the habit in my brain.

Then I heard from somewhere that the trick was focusing my brain on a new habit rather than working on abandoning a bad one.

I put this wisdom to the test and trained my mind to focus on developing a new habit instead, and my experience proved successful.

In order to break my soda habit, I told myself regularly that I was developing a new habit of drinking unsweet iced tea (which I really do enjoy drinking). I then told myself during the same times I would normally think about drinking a soda, that I would love to have an iced tea.

I would not allow my brain to move towards having thoughts of drinking a soda or even thoughts of not drinking a soda. If I did allow even my mind to dwell on the lack of soda drinking, then again I would find myself really craving one.

I then brought this new thought into other times and events that I would normally crave a soda. The hardest places of course were at restaurants eating my favorite foods. Before even walking into the eating establishment, however, I would put my mind onto the unsweet iced tea that I would soon be enjoying.

It worked!

I had trained my mind to crave a much healthier beverage at these different times and places and it became easier to keep to my new habit each time. I was intentionally choosing to reinforce the new habit rather than avoiding a bad habit.

I also have a habit tracker system on my phone. This gives me the reward of accomplishment as I learn a new habit. I will talk more about this system in my next Helpful Tip I share on social media!