Category Archives: Possessing Promised Land Plan

POSSESSING THE PROMISED LAND PLAN

GOD Who Are You? AND Who AM I?

Knowing and Experiencing God by His Hebrew Names

PART 4 – eBook 4

Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as He did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries His son, all the way you went until you reached this place [the promised land plan]. ”    Deuteronomy 1:29-31

Part 4 is comprised of the fourth three modules of the book and is Part 4 of the FREE eCourse Bonus on this Web site. They are:

Module 10 – Chapter 18: God is Jehovah-Sabaoth [The Lord of hosts]

Chapter 19: Because God is Jehovah-Sabaoth, We are One Mature Military Bride

Module 11 – Chapter 20: God is Jehovah [The LORD: Yahweh/Yeshua]

Chapter 21: Because God is Jehovah, We Are Jesus’ Feet

Module 12 – Chapter 22: God is Jehovah-Shammah [The Lord is There]

Chapter 23: Because God is Jehovah-Shammah, We Know Who We Are

Possessing Promised Land Plan

M12H Overcome Fear of Death

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The Scripture for this chapter—overcoming by the blood and by the word of our testimony—was another theme Scripture for our women’s group. However, the last part of it was not on our promotional material. “Not loving our own lives so much as to shrink from death,” means we must face the physical part of death when it comes to following Jesus as His disciple. This initially seemed too hard for our group to bear. Letting dreams die, as an example, is only a spiritual aspect.

overcome fear of deathRuth said to Naomi: “May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:17). This is true commitment. Is our commitment to Jesus Christ this strong? We need to make this decision now before we should ever be faced with it. One member of our group had a vivid dream which brought her to this choice on February 8, 2003. It was Denise. She fell asleep listening to Scripture tapes. She was praying for God to fill her with His Spirit and to change her.

Denise overcame fear of death for Jesus Christ’s sake

Denise dreamed she was in a huge, tall, apartment-type building. Suddenly, like cell phones, everyone had a small, hand-held computer. She wrote:

On the top floor, people were dressed in blue body suits including faces masked in blue. They were playing a musical type instrument, swaying back and forth. On the back of their heads at the base of their skulls were blue tubes like a vacuum hose leading to a laptop computer in the center of the room. On the screen was another blue screen with a diamond-shaped box that turned slowly; it rippled like when touching water. It was all evil, and addictive like a video game and brainwashing.

My two friends and I were awakened suddenly with yelling to get out of the building—very urgent. On the street, everyone had the same laptop computers. Leaflets were passed out—folded in quarters. Everyone who looked at it seemed entranced.

Back in the apartment was a man watching us very closely. We pretended to be engrossed in the computer, but were not. He put his cell phone away. I grabbed my friend, who had a leaflet, to take her into the bathroom to warn her that this was all evil. As we got to the bathroom, two mean-looking men came out. They had sores all over their faces. In the bathroom, two more men were standing in front of the sink, looking into the mirror. One man ran his hand through his hair and the red hair that was on top of his head was in his hand. He said, “Look, I am a new creation.” And then I saw a razor in the sink and he proceeded to shave the sides and back of his head and his beard and when he was done (like a second later) he started praising God and singing. The guy next to him did the same thing, but he had his hair.

I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me and I wanted to join in, but I stopped myself. A few moments earlier, I looked at my friend and she was just like those men we saw leaving the bathroom. She had sores on her face—looking mean and full of hate. As I listened to the men singing praise, I knew that if I joined in, I would either be killed or put in prison. I chose to join in.

There is no other choice for me. As I make that decision right now, I know that no matter what happens to me, I will sing praises to God and that what I might suffer through will only be short lived. Next, my husband woke me up.

Jehovah Shammah - do not shrink from death

The Lord has given Denise a message for Christians

She is very passionate when she says, “I just want to share something that is deep in my heart. Most people do not realize the persecution of Christians that is going on today. In fact, most people do not even have a clue of the history of Christian persecution and martyrdom. Just going from 33 A.D. thru the year 2000 there have been roughly 69,421,230 Christians who have been martyred for their faith. The surprising number is that 65 percent of this persecution has taken place in the last 100 years.[1]

“It is time to WAKE UP! WAKE UP! Stop sleeping, sleepy Christians. It is time to become REAL with our faith! Be in God’s WORD like never before! Share your FAITH like never before! While we have the FREEDOM to do so! It doesn’t hurt to speak out to protect those freedoms that so many men and women in our history have bled and died for! We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but we all know that our world is changing and things are not going to be as they once were! We cannot afford to be caught off guard! We must stand together as ONE voice! More importantly we must fight the good fight, keep up the race to the finish and keep the faith! SO WAKE UP, Sleepy Christians! WAKE UP!”

[1] D.C. Talk with Voice of the Martyrs, Jesus Freaks, Vol. 11, (Bethany House, 2002, Bloomington, MN), p. 352-353.

Possessing Promised Land Plan

M12G Overcome by the Blood the Lamb

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Very slowly, God did begin to reveal His plan—with very small beginnings. Precious Mary H. and her grown niece, Barbara S., lived one block from the health center. They opened their homes for prayer and sharing during our half-hour lunch times once a week, each taking turns. My friend Linda Scammell drove to town from where she and Chuck, her husband, had returned from Texas. We had lost touch with each other, and surprisingly, after twenty-five years, they were here, too. It was Linda who shared how learning the names of God, taught by their pastor, had set their church on fire. Our group caught fire—studying them over and over for seven years.

For two years we shared, made more friends and marveled that the men in town had a weekly, nondenominational, prayer and share time—but there was nothing for the women. I told God, “Well, I’m not doing it. If you want it done, You will have to do it Yourself!”

He did . . . by bringing me a choice I had to make. Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy Graham, was to hold one of her first Just Give Me Jesus conferences in Kansas City. As the time drew near, we knew we had to let other women know about it and car pool together. Janice Lamb and I handed out flyers we made. Thirty women answered the call. I also had thirty Angels on Assignment books left from my business inventory. I stuffed my testimony about the book inside, and handed them out.

After the seminar, we knew we had to keep the momentum going, so we put out a questionnaire to see if the women wanted to continue with monthly meetings. They did, and their top three choices were to have testimonies, praise songs, and prayer at each meeting. The winning name of the contest for our group was: Women with a Passion for Jesus.

Women with a Passion for Jesus learn to plead the blood

Learn to plead the bloodOur first meeting was September 8, 2001. After September 11, we knew why God had called us to meet. We had already adopted 2 Chronicles 7:14 as our guiding Scripture, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

At our second meeting, we did just that—we came together to repent, confess the sins of our land and pray as Nehemiah prayed for Jerusalem. He was personally not involved in turning away from the Lord, but he included himself in the act of rebellion against God: “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses” (Neh. 1:6-7). The Lord responded by giving Nehemiah everything he needed to rebuild and restore the Jerusalem wall.

After this, we felt we needed to know more specifically what sins had been committed in our area so we could repent wisely. After research which led to the days of “Bleeding Kansas,” we made two columns on a large tablet. The first column listed all the atrocities committed in the past; in the second, the promises in the Word that covered them.

It all boiled down to the blood of Jesus that covers them all. The shedding of innocent blood was covered by the blood of the Lamb. Thus, we learned to plead the blood of Jesus over our city, our state and our nation.

We also learned to prayer walk. We prayed Nehemiah’s prayer as we walked up and down the streets in town named after pro-slavery leaders: JUDSON, CRAWFORD, EDDY, HOLBROOK, BLACKBURN, LOWMAN and LITTLE.

Our walks were inspired by: 1) Joshua 1:3, “I will give you every place where you set your foot,” and 2) by the book PrayerWalk by Janet Holm McHenry. Her 5:00 a.m., prayer walks were inspired by the words of Jesus, “Could you not tarry one hour?” She saw many answers to prayer for her family and for people behind businesses and houses where she walked. One morning when passing by the sign of her town, she envisioned the sign reading, “The Place Where God Lives,” and then she saw people flocking to her small town in California.

Likewise, we have seen some answers to prayer with the honoring of African-American, Gordon Parks, world-renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, novelist, poet and composer, who left here at the age of fourteen because of prejudice. He chose to be buried here where the community college established a center to honor his works in their new fine arts center. We have also seen other African-Americans return here where they are now welcomed.

Jehovah Shammah - overcome by blood of Lamb

On a personal level, pleading the blood of Jesus is powerful as well. Susanne Cox, wife of Ron Cox, pastor of Kingwood Church, Birmingham, AL, experienced the power in the blood of the Lamb. Before meeting Ron, she was a missionary in India ministering to girls in prostitution. She spent a day in prayer seeking the Lord in the next step she was to take. Her friend was to meet her at the end of the day to take her home to her village. They missed seeing each other and it grew dark, so she decided to take a taxi home. After fifteen minutes, she realized the driver was going the opposite direction. Pretty soon, he pulled into a filling station where four men approached the car.

Susanne saw the most hideous, demon-possessed looking man speak with the driver. She understood him to be “buying this American.”

Immediately, Susanne prayed under her breath the most passionate prayer she ever prayed in her life. The Holy Spirit told her to pray out loud. She shouted something like this: “I plead the blood of Jesus Christ over these men! Father, you say in Psalm 91 that You will cover me with Your feathers, and under Your wings I will find refuge. I will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor pestilence in darkness. A thousand may fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but it will not come near me, in Jesus name!”

Suddenly, the men were slammed against the building. Susanne was delivered on the spot! She knew mighty angels had come to her rescue that night. Satan is all about death. Jesus is all about Life. It is the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ that He died to give that is our birthright to live in His kingdom. It does no more for us, except to get our foot in the door, unless we appropriate it in everyday life. We do that in the way Susanne did—against evil—and in praying for each other, in cleansing our homes or apartments, or workplaces, and how the women did in our small town. [Refer to Linda B.’s story of how the Holy Spirit led her early morning, written, prayer to plead the blood over her children, thus saving their lives that night—Module 9.]

Possessing Promised Land Plan

M12F Overcome by Sharing Your Testimony

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By the time we reach this point in our journey of experiencing God, we should know who we are and where we are going, right? Well almost. At least, we have made some headway, and we pray we do not have to go back and experience the refining fires of Jehovah Jireh again, or the healing streams of Jehovah-Rapha.

However, we find God’s ways are still higher than our ways, and His thoughts certainly wiser. The further we travel we realize we have to overcome or we will be overcome.

The Christmastime evening I was invited to hear Pastor Kelley Varner at The Prayer House learning about Ruth meant so much to me, because I was on the threshing floor right then— about to lose the business/ministry I had spent seventeen years in building.

 

What I did not know was I would stay on that threshing floor at least ten more years experiencing the refining fires and healing streams of Jehovah again and again. I would discover that “overcoming” contains  these three dimensions:

  • sharing our testimony—how we take our flame and ignite another
  • the blood of the Lamb—pleading the blood through prayer or prayer walks
  • not shrinking from death—whether it is physical or in the spiritual realm

These steps are recorded in Revelation 12:11 in past-tense form, “They [that is us] overcame [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” This Scripture is talking about you and me after we have left this planet. This chapter explains the next three steps the body of Christ makes after the turning mentioned in the last module.

OVERCOME BY SHARING TESTIMONY

“But I don’t want to go to work by swiping in and out by the time clock!” Jim came out to the front-porch swing where I was crying.

We had recently moved from Arkansas City, south of Wichita, back to where we began, south of Kansas City, July 1999. Yes, it was the same town from where we moved to Texas when Jim chose to go back to school. We had come full circle back to his first teaching position. Now, he was the Dean of Instruction of the community college where he would retire as president.

“I want to write. I have to write. If I go to work, I won’t have time to write.”

“If you don’t go to work, you won’t be able to get your business debts paid off, either,” he replied.

“I know, but I don’t have to like it. If only . . . If only I had accepted the change faster I wouldn’t be in this fix. I should have taken the ‘buy-out’ the company offered when they sold out. I could have paid off everything and had some extra money so I could go back to school, and not have to swipe a time clock.”

The new company sold our Christian books to Wal Mart stores and it looked like everything I had worked so hard for was coming together. I had six or seven distributors trained and in the field ready to move into the stores, but when all the facts were handed down (after the deadline for taking the buy-out) the discount margin would not allow Jim and me to pay commission fees.

We would have had to do all the traveling and work ourselves in order to make it, [and Jim had been willing to come into the business with me]. That led to another counseling session with Jim as he tried to open my eyes to the facts. He went to bed while I stayed up all night feeling sorry for myself and trying to comprehend what was happening.

The bottom line was I felt like a failure. Years previous to this I found myself with a $10,000 balance on my business credit card I couldn’t seem to get paid off. Jim knew nothing about it; I had to face the truth and face him with it—I could not increase sales enough to get it paid off. I was surprised when I told him that he did not blow up. He said we would refinance the house and also use some of the money to get Kurt to West Point, New York after his high school graduation.

That lesson taught me to take a draw from the business based on the previous month’s sales, not on what I estimated the current month to be. But now, here I was, back in bondage again. The buy-out offered me was equal to the amount I owed the company on the credit line they had given me. That was offered because I had an opportunity to get in a chain of 100 stores.

The chain went bankrupt, but I did get in the back door, so to speak, when each store went independent. To top it all off, I bought some accounts from another distributor only to find the books had been priced higher than normal. I had to buy them back higher than I resold them. When was I ever going to learn and how was I to get out of something I was so far in?

That long night, I told the Lord that He would have to get me out. “I give up. I give it all back to You.” The next day I received a letter from a man in Oklahoma wanting to service accounts and my up-line distributor took over as I sold down inventory over the next year.

After I let my dream die, Jim received the phone call to return to eastern Kansas. So here we were, renting a house one block from the two-story house we lived in before where the angel saved our daughter—an eerie feeling. The question, what is God up to? was continually on my mind.

Jim brought me back to reality (again) when he said, “Ann, I know you want to write, but you have to accept responsibility for where you are now. Don’t you remember what we learned? To be the Church as a force in the community means going where people are—just as your business philosophy was. Staying home to only write is not the answer.”

I knew Jim was right. I accepted the full-time job in the business office at the health center— one of the best decisions I ever made. It was there—working under man’s authority—the Lord sifted and shook leaving solid relationships at work and at home. God is able to do what He wills with a heart and body in a five by six-foot cubicle eight hours per day. God was not interested in how “much” land I could possess, but in how much of my heart He could possess.

It was also there I met the most amazing women on the face of Earth, and I discovered what God was up to. There was no doubt He was connecting me with each person, including the current president of the Christian writer’s group, Carol R. Just when I thought there could be no other spiritual power-house of a woman in this area, there she was. I knew it was God, but it took me awhile to see His purposes in the connections He was orchestrating.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. We bought another house in town. Its garage held a Christmas, yard sign reading, “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord.” I didn’t want to do anything! All my own efforts had failed and now, all I really wanted to do was work, come home and rest.

 

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