Visions of Jesus: My Story and Ephesians

Here is a part of my teaching from Ephesians chapter 2.

V4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

But God. I love that. Because He loves you so much, His entire motive is love. In my heart this is the theme God has revealed possibly for my life. BUT GOD….Because of His love for which He loved me.

The amplified says because of His great and intense love that God has for you.

The message says: in order that He could satisfy His great and intense love…

Can you just think on that for a minute with me. It is satisfying to God to love on us with such a lavish gift of Jesus. We think about the cross and the sacrifice and the great extent to which the Father gave up His only son, but do we dream about that it brought great satisfaction to His heart because of His great need to pour out His love on us? Do you feel the warm anointing oil of the Spirit just pouring those truths over you?

V5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) While you were filthy and unredeemed not marked by Christ, in darkness, the message says He embraced you! Scooped you up into the loving arms of Jesus. He brought you from death to life in Christ Jesus! From death to life. You are made ALIVE? Do you believe that? DO you feel alive?

I love the visual there, being scooped up, embraced by the Father. God stirred on my heart a few times this week about my visions of Him. About our visions of Him. If you have not had a vision of Jesus I encourage you to ask Him for one. As I shared with Lionel and then a friend this week, I was seeing how the changes of my vision of Him paralleled my path of healing. At first I only ever saw the cross and it stirred and even broke my heart, but my heart was broken. Then I would always see myself as a pile under the cross and Him still on it. And I always thought that is fitting, I am a wounded pile on the floor in my heart. But as I walked through healing He gave me a new vision of Him bending town to kiss the top of my head grabbing my face sweetly like a Father to a little child, Showing me His great fathers love and this brought break through! Much healing as I did not know the loving touch of an earthly father. Then He gave me a vision of Him standing proud hands on His hips, smirking at me and laughing delighted at the time we were having together, and then He gave me a vision of Himself sitting on a throne, and He is even bigger than the throne and He’s leaning over looking at me expectantly, listening to me, leaning in to me. My really big God that can handle all that is in my heart He listens to me and He speaks back. My experience with Him was never meant to stay on the cross, you know because He did not stay at the cross, that is where I met Him, but I am being transformed into the likeness of His resurrection to walk in newness of life.

V6-7 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Don’t stay at the cross, raised to walk in newness of life, Jesus didn’t stay on the cross and He didn’t stay in the grave, be raised up with Him that is the transformed life, that is a life redeemed, renewed, restored,

rescued now He seats you at a place of Honor in heaven with Jesus. Can you just imagine that for a second, the arms of the Loving Father pulling you up into a warm loving embrace like a mother of father scooping up a child and sitting them next to Jesus, next to your loving care taker, life giver, brother, friend.

(7) this He did to show the unlimit-less measure of His free grace (amplified)

Listen to the full message here.

A peace of my heart: My story and Ephesians.

As the Lord began walking me through the process of healing He had me camp out in Ephesians for a long season and began to stir my heart for the truths in this book to become active and alive in my life. Since that time, He has asked me to share this, in discipleship, at a retreat, and now to the women of my church. Which has been such a blessing to me and I have to say stirred even more healing in me. I am grateful for the opportunities He has given me and honored that He would use me like this. So I am sharing here as well. Below is a small section of this first session with the link if you are stirred to listen. I will be posting them all here.

Ephesians 1:18 the eyes of our understanding being enlightened…that you may know the HOPE, HIS CALLING, YOUR IDENTITY. (paraphrased by me.)

A few months ago my husband was meeting with a very highly regarded Christian man in our community. And the truth was this man’s heart has grown somewhat calloused with the lies of the enemy. SO in the process of God speaking through my husband, Lionel began to share some of my story. How I was abandoned by my real father, how my mother had six husbands and went from one abusive relationship to an even worse one, how I was sexually abused at a young age and how I lived very much of my adolescent years over exposed to sexuality, drug abuse, and alcoholic lifestyles.

But Lionel was telling this man of the powerful work of healing God has been doing in my life over the past 12+ years. And how God has radically changed me. And this man made a very profound statement and asked one of the best questions I have ever heard.

He said most Christians run from that kind of healing. I want to let that seep in a little, most Christians run from that kind of healing. You know he is right, healing is hard and even painful work.

And then He asked, why didn’t Kristen? Good question. Why didn’t I run from it, stay shut down, closed off, defeated. Why?

My precious husband gave the best answer I have ever heard, as he had observed this process in me over the years. He said it was the pursuit of God that kept her pressing in for more healing, not the pursuit of healing itself. He shared that each time God would walk me through a layer of healing, God would reveal a little more about Himself in the process and I became desperate to know Him more and more, and in turn He helped me trust Him to work through the painful things that would allow my heart to heal.

CS Lewis wrote: Your real new self will not come as you are looking for it, it will come when you are looking for Him. By His love we escape from ourselves into Him, and then into one another!

We have an assignment, to actively pursuit God.

AW Tozer The Pursuit of God: TO have found God and still to pursuit Him is the soul’s paradox of love.

I believe who we are and how we live, react, respond, walk, thrive, or fail, is directly related to what and who we perceive God to be and what and how we believe about His words. We do not live by what we know, we live by what we believe. Yes there is a difference. We live by what is in our heart.

The Psalmist said it, guard the heart with all diligence for out of flow the issues of life, not out of our minds and thoughts, out of our hearts.

Romans 10:9-10 explains that it is the heart that believes unto salvation

TOZER: In speaking thus I have one fear, that I might convince the mind before God has won the heart.

No matter who you are, what your going through, how you’ve sinned, who has hurt you, what your financial circumstance, what your past, present, or future is, the active radical pursuit of HIM, God, to know Him alone, will dramatically change it all.

Here the full story and insite from the book of Ephesians here.

Hearing from God. Does He provide?

I am writing this quick post as thoughts keep rushing through my brain on a particular topic of making wise decisions with the Lord and specifically concerning His provision.

We live in a community of believers where there are SO many amazing opportunities to do things with the Lord and with the body of Christ. Many. Many. And so many of these are spendy.

So are all of them of the Lord? Sure.

Does God want me to do all of them? Absolutely not.

I've been hearing from a lot of young people lately, oh just do this or just do that, God will provide. Hmm, really? It certainly would feel good to me or my young adult children to get to do every single thing that is in front if us, it would feel great actually. But I am reminded of an old and wise saying "many things are good, but what is Gods best for me?"

My heart was struggling with this, SO I asked the Lord because I wanted to give my own kids wise words from the Lord. And He said to me simply this, every thing I speak to them to do I will provide for, everything they go outside of my plan for them and do on their own will be bondage to them. And then He said this, they can learn these lessons the hard way, or they can learn to hear from me now in all things and avoid a lot of heart ache. Lead them to hear from Me.

Wow. Ok Lord.

He will tell them. Not others. Not even me. And He is teaching them to hear His voice. Amazing. And He has plans for them that sometimes means they miss out on one amazing thing because God is doing other amazing things in their life.

Peace in my heart. It is a yes to God in our heart. Not a blanket yes to every cool thing that comes our way. Some times saying yes to following God means He says NO to some adventures that seem awesome to us. It's because He always has a plan. And if its a true desire of your heart He is saying NO to right now, it will be a matter of trusting Him for that in the future.

CAUTION!!! Do not put your self in the place of the Holy Spirit convincing someone they should do something that God has not spoke to them about. We can not speak for God to lead another only encourage them to seek Him and pray for them to hear.

Also for young people, learn His voice. Listen, take time to pray, learn to make wise decisions with Him, on your own.

Our Pastor Rob Verdeyen shared in his message concerning the apostle Paul's missionary journeys, that Paul had good plans for trips to reach the gentiles, yet they were not God's plans and God worked differently then Paul expected or even desired but every time it was way better(I am summarizing). It's SO good to surrender our own plans. And when we join God in what He is already moving and doing in our life, it is way better than we can even ask or think...Ephesians 3:20.

And this is not about a matter of lacking faith either. It takes as much faith to hear a No from God as it does a Yes. More so in fact because we mostly want to hear a yes. But either way the enemy is trying to thwart God's plans in our life. Satan will lie to you saying of course God wants this for you, why wouldn't He? but God does not call us to places of bondage. Ever.

SO to remain in His obedience and perfect plan, we must hear from Him. And what do we do if we do not hear? We wait. Yes, that's right. Sometimes He makes us wait. I personally know it is during the waiting times in my life that I have drawn into greater intimacy with the Lord. As the Lord revealed this to me He said, Kristen I love the waiting times with you, I love you pressing into Me, so close, waiting your every move for my word, this is how I am growing you Kristen.

I have a dear friend that just went to Israel for the 1st time and LOVED it! She tells me that I will get to go in God's right appointed time for me. I love her for that! I do not feel I am missing out on anything God has for me because I walk with the Lord and He instructs me what to do, where to go, how to spend my money.

And He has provided for everything in my life. Everything. And when I make a mistake, He lets me know and yet I still have the consequences of my actions and some of those have taken time to walk through. Lessons learned.

Does God perform amazing miracles and powerfully supply all our needs? Absolutley. Will He provide for all of our wants and desires? Not necessarily. A wise steward will not put to test the latter. Come to Him on His terms, not your own. Lay down your personal rights and you will be joyfully led by Him, what ever that may look like and where ever.

A good resource: for making wise financial decisions, Dave Ramsey.

Blessings!