The Holy Spirit is…. – Karen Austin.

One day I was meditating on how much Holy Spirit means to me and began to write. I decided to share my musings with you today. I pray they will stir up your love for Him and remind you of all He wants to be and do in your life.

“How can I not love Holy Spirit? How can I not have Holy Spirit as my best friend? His thoughts towards me are always pure. He always sees the best in me. When He corrects me, I know He is showing me truth and not an opinion of man or tradition. Holy Spirit is so full of joy ready to lift my heavy heart. He knows the very heart of my Father – the One who created all things. For it is in the Father that all wisdom is hidden [Romans 11:33]. Holy Spirit accesses that wisdom and reveals it to my heart,

Holy Spirit is the spirit of my soon coming King [Galatians 4:6]. He empowered Jesus upon the earth to withstand all evil and temptation. He does the same for me. He worked through Jesus to heal the sick, cast out devils and raise the dead [Acts 10:38]. He does the same through me. He hovered over chaos and brought order. [Genesis 1:2]. He brings order to my chaos.

Holy Spirit imparted the purest, most powerful love within me as the Father poured His love into my heart through Holy Spirit [Romans 5:5]. Holy Spirit is the change agent in my life conforming me into the image of Christ [2 Corinthians 3:18]. He picks me up when I fall. He encourages me to keep pressing on when I want to give up. He comforts me in my brokenness. He gives me wisdom beyond my comprehension. He releases strength to me when I am weak. He imparts healing when I am sick. He imparts hope when I have none. He believes in me when no one else does. He leads me when I don’t know which way to go.

He is my bright light in times of darkness. He opens the Word to me giving me divine insights. He is always with me, communing with my spirit, even as I sleep. He is my confidant. He never shares my secrets with another. He convicts me of sin, but without condemnation.

He is unpacking all the potential and destiny my Father has placed within me. His nature gifts me with love, joy, unshakeable peace, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness and self-control, patience and goodness. His gifts me with His abilities: words of wisdom, words of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.

How can I not love Him? How can I not have Him as by Best Friend?”

“And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Savior, the Holy Spirit of Truth, who will be to you a friend just like me—and he will never leave you. The world won’t receive him because they can’t see him or know him. But you will know him intimately, because he will make his home in you and will live inside you.” John 14:16 TPT

“Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” Psalm 51:11

Outpouring of His Comfort and Mercy – Karen Austin

Ever since I heard President Trump was sending two Naval medical ships to aid the areas hardest hit with the virus, I sensed the names of the ships were prophetic as to what God is going to do in the midst of this pandemic. As we know, New York has the highest number of reported cases and deaths. California is now ranked third in this national emergency.

The first medical ship named “Comfort” is being sent to New York. The Biblical meaning of “comfort” is to give strength and hope, to ease the grief and to console. 2 Corinthians 1:13 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

The second medical ship, which I believe is being sent to California, is named “Mercy”. The Biblical meaning of “mercy” is “to withhold deserved punishment”. Romans 9:14-14 “..then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not! For He says to Moses:“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy…”

Our nation has turned so far from our Christian roots and has had such vile blatant opposition to Biblical values that we hold dear. We deserve punishment. If we were God, we probably would have destroyed this nation years ago. But the Father is so long-suffering to show such mercy and comfort to those who oppose Him. He desires that none should perish and everyone come to repentance…to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Taking this down to a personal level, you and I know that we did not deserve His mercy and at times His comfort, but His love for us is greater than we can even fathom! Joel 2:13 “And rend your heart and not your garments ” Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness And relenting of evil.”

Note these two ships are medical ships…carriers of disaster relief and healing. I believe this is exactly what the Father desires to do in the midst this pandemic, fear and grief. From one side of our nation to the other, in the midst of this horrific demonic attack, the Father is sending an outpouring of His comfort and His mercy. He is releasing healing to our land for many have humbled themselves, prayed and sought His face. We are turning from our wicked, evil ways as He has been revealing them to us during this time of consecration. The Father has heard us from Heaven and will forgive us and heal our land.

I cannot remember a time when I have witnessed so much public prayer, especially on social media, some news outlets and by our government leaders. Even those who have not known Him are calling upon His help for our nation. I sense this outpouring of His mercy, the withholding of punishment we deserve; and His comfort, the giving of strength; hope and ministering to our grief, will play a huge part in demonstrating the great outpouring of His Spirit upon us. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. The catalyst for an awakening has begun. It is not yet complete, but I can see the flames of revival rising from our land!

Psalm 116:1 “I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.”

God is Dealing With Idols – Karen Austin

While on a prayer call tonight, Holy Spirit led me to 1 Samuel 5:1-5 “After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place. But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold.”

What I sensed He was showing me was He has been trying to deal with our idols, but we keep putting them back in place. Now He is coming to us in our times of being shut away to deal with the things we have allowed to become idols in our lives. But this time, if we allow Him, He is cutting off the head and the hands of our idols. Biblical meaning of the head deals with the seat of reason and intellect. The head is the one who is leader. Biblical meaning of the hand represents control, ownership and power. So in this time, all the things that were as idols in our lives, He wants to disarm.

He has been showing me mindsets I had that were just a little out of line with His. He also has been showing me things that I didn’t realize before that I had put in place of His desires.

When we have idols in our lives, we cannot see Him clearly.1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”His ultimate goal in every one of us is to be conformed into His image as mature sons. Thus the reason of His desire for the destruction of idols we keep putting back in place in our lives.

The other thing He highlighted to me was the word “threshold” in the scripture reference I began with. We have to cross over a threshold as a way of entrance and a way of exit. We have crossed the threshold into this season one way, but His intent for you and for me is for when we cross over the threshold to come out of this season, we will be like Him!

Speaking the Word of the Lord in Power – Karen Austin

How many of us believe that our words have power? But do we really? We know that scripture says out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouth speaks. [Luke 6:45] It is in times like these, when the pressure is on, that what we speak is what we are really believing. I have to ask myself, what is it that I have been saying? What is the greater truth that I’m believing in my heart? This is why scripture says for us to hide His Word in our hearts so that is what we will not sin against Him and so what comes out of our mouth is releasing His Kingdom power.

As I have said before, this is our time. We were born for this. It is time that we speak and act different than the world. How else are they going to know who to come to for help in their times of distress if we act and speak like those who have no hope? In the past they may have heard us proclaim Jesus and His promises, but they are looking at us now to see if we really believe what we have been saying.

So we, as His ambassadors on the earth, have to come up higher in our believing and in our speaking. It is time to agree with Heaven. We have to have Heaven’s words in our mouth which release peace, power, healing and hope. He is looking for those who will partner with Him.

Prayer:

“Father, I repent for agreeing with the spin the world has taken on this virus pandemic. I understand that is all they know, but it is not all that I know. I know Your Word is true and I choose to agree with You. May we be instruments of Your peace and healing in this time of distress in our nation, in our cities and in our families. May we lead people out of chaos and into knowing Your divine peace, healing and Your abundant love. Thank You Father, for You have chosen us to be alive in this time. May we rise up to accomplish all that you have assigned us to do to expand Your Kingdom in the sphere of authority You have given us. We look to You and praise You for Your redemptive purposes in times such as these, We rest in You.”

May the words that come out of my mouth and the musings of my heart meet with Your gracious approval,” Psalm 19:14

Shalom Over Chaos – Karen Austin

As I was reading Psalm 34 the other day, something in the commentary of The Passion Translation stood out to me. The scripture reference was Psalm 34:12-14 “Do you want to live a long, good life, enjoying the beauty that fills each day? Then never speak a lie or allow wicked words
to come from your mouth. Keep turning your back on every sin, and make “peace” your life motto. Practice being at peace with everyone.”
As you remember, I shared about peace last week. I keep being lead back to this topic and feel it is a vital concerning what this nation and others are facing with the coronavirus.

Here is what was stated in the notes: “Twice the Hebrew uses the word shalom. This word means much more than peace. It means wholeness, wellness, well-being, safe, happy, friendly, favor, completeness, to make peace, peace offering, secure, to prosper, to be victorious, to be content, tranquil, quiet, and restful. The pictographic symbols for the word shalom (shin, lamed, vav, mem) read “Destroy the authority that binds to chaos.” The noun shalom is derived from the verbal root shalam, which means “to restore,” in the sense of replacing or providing what is needed in order to make someone or something whole and complete. So shalom is used to describe those of us who have been provided all that is needed to be whole and complete and break off all authority that would attempt to bind us to chaos.”

Did you get that? “The pictographic symbols for the word shalom reads “Destroy the authority that binds to chaos”! Is chaos not what we are seeing take place? Chaos means complete disorder or confusion. A few synonyms for chaos are disorder, pandemonium, hell, confusion. Can you see what the plans of the enemy are in the situation we are currently experiencing? Some words that describe the opposite of chaos are order, tranquility, calm, clarity.

We have been given spiritual authority to break off the power of the enemy that is attempting to bind this nation to fear and afflict sickness and death upon the people. We must not come into agreement with fear and chaos! Remember it is stated in Genesis that Holy Spirit was hovering over the chaos [Genesis 1]. He is still hovering waiting for the Sons of God to arise and take their place and use their authority. There are angels ready to be dispatched on our behalf. But we must do our part.

First, we must be submitted to God. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7. We must humble ourselves and repent of anything that doesn’t look like Him or act like Him. Get real with Him and allow Him to reveal any darkness in us. Then deal with any issues He may show you. Then we are to partner with Heaven, using the authority He has given us to bind and loose.

It’s time my friends to arise and shine. These are the days that we have been created for. I have heard other prophets say this is the beginning of “birth pains” that Jesus talked about [Matthew 24]. This is our call Bride of Christ. What will be our response? What will be your response?

What is the prophetic – (Part 2) – Gary Florence

Let’s pick up where we left off on part 1.

Ananias had a choice to make he could have looked through his natural eyes and the circumstances surrounding Saul and what was happening to the church and declared to him “You are a lying good for nothing murderer” and you know what, in the natural he was speaking the truth but Ananias allowed the Lord to open his spiritual eyes instead and heard the Lord say to him, “Go for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel”.

We too have choices to make, we could look through our natural eyes and circumstances surrounding people and declare to them “You are nothing but sinners all you do is sin, sin, sin!” Or could we allow the Holy Spirit to open our spiritual eyes and call out the hidden treasures that God has placed in each one of us? Later on Saul, who is now named Paul, says that prophecy is to encourage, edify, and build up. He also said I wish that all of you would prophecy. I just have to wonder if one of the reasons Paul wrote that is because of the impact the prophetic word from Ananias had on his life.

The prophetic word has the ability to change someone’s life for the positive. You may one day be called upon by the Lord to be an Ananias to someone that in the natural there is nothing you can see in them being used by God that would have an impact on the world. They may even be in sin, but do you dare to allow your eyes to see into the spirit and call forth the Paul in them. Let me put a challenge before you and me, those of us who may have the gift of prophecy what if we decide to choose the prophetic to encourage, edify, and build up? To call forth from a person the hidden treasure within them because each and everyone one of us has God given talents, abilities and gifting’s and allow the ones who have been called to the office of the Prophet to call forth the judgments of God when it’s necessary. What kind of impact could we have on people’s lives if we decided to rise to this challenge?

In our mouth’s we have the power of life and death, together let’s choose life. Here’s something for you to think about. Our founding fathers and mothers, did they not also prophesy over our nation when the declared that we would be “One nation under God.”?

The next time we get together I am going to share on a topic that can be controversial and push a lot of people’s button and that is should women keep silent in the church? Do you have your buttons ready?

What is the prophetic? (Part 1) – Gary Florence

I am sure that there are as many answers as there are questions to this topic. We may think of prophecy as one foretelling the judgments of God, like in the Old Testament or Jesus telling Nathaniel that He saw him sitting under a tree before they even met. So in this day and age who’s voice do we listen too? There are those voices who say that the judgments of God are coming to American. Like California is going to detach from the U.S. and drift out to sea and perish because of Hollywood. Then you have other voices claiming that a kind of like utopia is on the horizon. I am not writing to side with one or the other, what I would like to do is take you down the road to Damascus where a man named Saul was about to encounter THE Prophetic Word.

Saul was on his way to kill the Way (Christians) when he was knock off his high horse by the prophetic light of Christ. Many times we call out sin and judgment in one another lives but what would happen if we decided to call out one another’s treasure of destiny that God has placed within each of us. Next time we will found out what choice Ananias made when he came to Saul at the house on Straight Street.