To read the entire post, please click on the date shown above to open the post:
In my dream, I saw many people standing around what I would call an average-sized campfire, but they were not camping per se.
And the voice of the Lord said to me… “How much are my people on fire for me?”
This has stirred up a lot of thought for me, and where am I standing in this process? This is such a good question. Am I “on fire” for Jesus?
The center point of this question is “How Much?” am I on fire for Jesus?
Everyone has some measure of God within them, for we all came from Him. We were all good seeds. We were all ‘planted’ on Earth when we were born. But the scripture says that the wicked one came while everyone slept and began to sow tares among the wheat.
The word “slept” has a very interesting meaning…. We slept. I have had many experiences with both the light side and the dark side visiting me at night. The Lord comes to instruct and give wisdom, while the devil comes to plant strange ideas and thoughts that grow into discord and selfishness… both come to visit us.
But… I have also “slept” by not taking things as seriously as I should have. Letting other priorities move in front of God, which over time had moved him down my list of importance until he was literally at the very bottom of my list. Essentially, I ‘slept’ concerning the things of God, and it was to this that the devil was able to come and sow in my mind his tares upon me, and I allowed them to grow for a time.
Jesus gave a masterful discourse in this Parable, for He only sows good wheat into the earth, and just like the question asked by the servants, “If only good seed was sown, from whence hath it tares?”
The question is a good one…. With so many people coming forth with so many different beliefs and affirmations nowadays, we wonder where all this comes from.
Satan has only one goal, and that is to take away from God what he loves the most, and that is His children. And the easiest way to do that is to introduce them to those things that are ungodly and sinful, thus barring them from re-entering back into the kingdom of Heaven after they die and pass on.
So, he (the devil) comes and speaks things into their thoughts, enticing them to do that which is against the commandments of God, thereby encouraging them to sin. another tactic is to be so busily engaged in all kinds of things which moves God to the bottom of the priority list, and to move us as far away from God as he can. He is sowing tares…into the mind, and those that follow those enticements, and allow them to grow whereby they remain in that state, become a tare over time.
The devil doesn’t have a physical body and cannot force us into anything, instead, he speaks to our minds, and he puts thoughts and ideas into our heads… it comes in as if it were our thoughts. This is the deception. Those thoughts are not from us, they are from the evil one, and it entices us to follow it… Then, by our choice, we either resist it or submit to it. It’s a choice.
All things begin in the mind.
God showed me in a dream that the devil has assigned evil spirit(s) to each living man/woman walking on the earth. Just like we have a guardian angel, you could say that we also have a guardian devil. Whichever one we listen to the most will determine how strong of an influence they will have upon us. Those who are always doing so much evil, their guardian devil has a greater influence upon them, and they become the devil’s emissary.
We only have ourselves to blame, we stopped listening to the right source… for there is opposition in all things. We need to take the time to ‘weed out’ the tares that we find sown in our beliefs and thoughts.
Tares are made, they are not born, because God did not plant bad seeds. But because of our faults and imperfections, of which we come to earth to seek to perfect with God’s help, the devil exposes them and draws them out, and we end up wandering on foreign roads and strange paths… Over time, we either move to the left or to the right, it depends on who we choose to listen to… This then defines if we are a tare or a wheat. Jesus also said, “My sheep hear my voice and a stranger’s voice they will not follow.”
This brings us back to the original question: “How much are my people on fire for me?”
Some of us treat God as an “Interest.” Like a commodity, He is only accessed when it benefits us. When our lives seem to be fine, we kind of let him go, but when we are in trouble, for our convenience’s sake, we seek to involve God out of our own discomfort, and we look for Him to fix it so we can go back to the same ol’.
This is where I was for a very long time. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe, but that I wanted to do other things following my own agenda. Life became comfortable in the space where I was, and therefore, God wasn’t needed so much. Over time, prayer became less prayer, and reading scriptures became less scriptures, until eventually I wasn’t doing anything, too busy with my ventures and activities to include God.
As I ponder this question from God, about being on fire for him, I feel that the correct reference is how much “Zeal” do I have for God. Where is he in my list of priorities, and instead of doing everything my way, why am I not saying, “How can I add God” into these same activities and adjust them to fit His purposes… In doing so, would this not only enhance the activity but prosper it also?
Several years ago, I was asking God to help me understand what I should look for in a career. On this question, I fasted and prayed many times, believing that I would receive an answer, and being patient, I waited until I got that answer, not doubting that it would come. It was when, not if…
Then one night, I had my guardian angel show up, and he pulled up a whiteboard to write on. On the board, he drew two lines that went from the top to the bottom. One line was on the left side and one line was on the right side. He said that these two lines represented the time of one day.
Then, at the top of the left line, he said, “Some people will choose careers where that is their top priority,” and he wrote the word career at the top of the line. He then drew a long box over the line that took up about 2/3’s of the line. Leaving only 1/3 of the line left. He then said that they would have civil activities and family activities and he wrote those down next, then at the bottom, he wrote God, and said that “because they had so many things that they were involved in, that they would put God last on their list if there were time left.”
Then on the line on the right side of the white board, he said that, “others, would put God first above all else,” and he wrote the word ‘God’ at the top of the line, and the box that he drew over the line that represented time that we would spend with God was about the same amount of time as the left side. It wasn’t that much more time, but it was the fact that God was first. That is what made all the difference. Then he wrote the words, Civil activities and family activities, and at the bottom he filled the remaining space of the line up with the word ‘Career.’
Then he looked directly at me and said, “You should choose a career that fits the right line.” And he withdrew and disappeared. This gave me good counsel that would help answer my question. It might not be so much of ‘time’, but the quality of the time that I spend and the ‘zeal’ with which I spend that time in putting God first.
“How much are my people on fire for me?”
How much fire do I have for Jesus? What does that mean? Am I including Him daily as the first priority, so that everything else more easily falls in line? Do I have any ‘zeal?’ Or am I afraid of the judgments of others who see me putting God first?
One last thought…. When the Lord asked all the apostles what they would have Him do after he ascended into heaven? They all said that they wanted to be with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven, so Jesus granted their requests to be with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven after they had reached a certain age.
But one desired more… and that was John. Perhaps that is why Jesus called him ‘the beloved?’ How much more was he on fire for Jesus?
In the deepness of his heart, he desired that not one soul should perish, and seeing that the outcome of the world was only going to grow darker and more evil, it pained him at how many would be lost and Jesus knew it. He desired that not one soul should perish, and he was willing to put more time in no matter how long it took.
Jesus granted that request, and to the remaining apostles he said, “What if I desire that he tarry until I come, what is that to thee; Follow thou me.” How much more was John on fire for Jesus? How much ‘zeal’ did he have? What blessing did he receive because of this?