Fathering Leadership

Rest and Living Spirit Led

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Christian Devotions is where you can cooperate with God to come into rest and living spirit led.

There is a victorious life in the Spirit that comes in a more practical way than we might have imagined.

There are two ways to train a horse. The traditional method is to put the animal in small pen, strap on a saddle, climb aboard and ride it out until he quits rearing up and bucking. He eventually wears himself out and breaks down. Methods such as these are called “breaking” a horse. The title says it all.

Rest and Living Spirit LedIn natural horsemanship, colloquially known as horse whispering, the trainer slowly builds trust with the horse until the animal allows himself to be ridden.

I asked a friend who has worked with horses in these ways what differences she sees in them. She related that he horses that are trained through “whispering” are very different in maturity than those broken through force. They are willing and genuinely wanting to be with the rider, even having joy and anticipation to work with them. The “broken” horses may have a respect for the rider, but it is totally fear based.

This is a great picture of the deeper Christian life. God’s gentleness makes us great (Ps.18:35), not his severity. Jesus shows us who Father God is in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The father gave the inheritance even though the prodigal son was in rebellion. In the story, the father truly wanted heart relationship, not fear-based conformity.

Often we hear teachings about casting down wrong thoughts, denying emotions, and exercising faith, and these approaches are good when rest and living spirit ledthey work. However, when they don’t, we frequently move into struggling. If we would simply hold our hearts open before the Lord, He would help us see the deeper issues that are causing the triggering thoughts and emotions. As we find the root of our triggers and allow God to touch that, the wrong thoughts and emotions just go away.

Think of golf. You have to have good form, but then your swings success only happens if you are relaxed. Struggling gets you nowhere! In the Christian life, our form is knowing we are loved by God and that it is normal to need ministry and work through issues. Having “issues” is part of being human; these things do not affect our identity.

There is a place of such sensitivity to the Spirit that we can be in any situation, be aware of all the behaviors and corresponding emotions at hand, and respond with agape love. In the midst of traffic, heavy workloads, strong-willed children, or people that act controlling toward us, we can tap into God’s love. This happens, not because we’ve have resisted enough or fasted enough, it happens because we have allowed God to work deep in our hearts. This is what brings us to a victorious Spirit-led life.

How to Resolve the Legal Ground in Prayer Ministry so Deliverance is Easy

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Resolve the Legal Ground in Prayer Ministry so Deliverance is Easy

Resolve the Legal Ground in Prayer MinistrySo many people in the Prayer Ministry community are highly focused on deliverance and generational issues. It is not something I turn my back on, however, I feel it is often approached in an unbalanced way. Resolve the legal ground in prayer ministry first is a huge key. How do you do this? Here’s an example that will help.

Gerard prayed for deliverance numerous times but still wasn’t free.

I worked recently with Gerard. He felt like a spirit of rejection had been attached to him his whole life. Being in social situations often brought much anxiety. He wondered if it was a generational issue. He had prayed to break it many times unsuccessfully.

As I worked with him through issues, he kept mentioning how his dad would always tell him he was worthless, good for nothing, and would never amount to anything. He’d already forgiven his dad but this kept coming up. As he considered the words of his father, he discovered a belief that he was worthless, that somehow his dad was right – he really was flawed. We lifted that to the Lord and God showed him that he was altogether lovely in His sight, fearfully and wonderfully made, washed in the blood of Jesus. When Gerard looked at the memory again, he could now see that it was his dad who was wounded and had issues. He prayed to forgive his dad again and this time felt a deep release and peace in the memory.

Deliverance became easy

After the memories with dad became peaceful, we then broke off rejection from his life. He felt something leave him that has never returned. Deliverance was easy now. We prayed once and it was done because he’d dealt with the legal ground – why it was even there – first.

I believe deliverance is a good tool but never a replacement for facing and resolving our pain. There are reasons why we still feel hurt in some of our memories and when these issues are resolved, we can be free from our past.

How to Avoid the Trap of Forcing Christian Victory

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How to Avoid the Trap of Forcing Christian Victory and Learn to Align Your Heart Instead

Trying to Force Victory is the Most Common of Traps Christians fall into.

All movement must have an energy source. Consider if our combustion is the clean fuel of the Holy Spirit working through Avoid the Trap of Forcing Christian Victoryan aligned heart, or is it a fleshly, unclean source of performance. When we cook on an unclean fuel, the food will have a bad or even toxic flavor. In discovering this, our approach is usually to force out the wrong flavor or add enough other spices to cover it.

Often we have a present-tense mindset and approach to healing in the Body of Christ. We are taught to cast something out, resist wrong thoughts, deny pain and claim victory.

Consider the message of some of the top leaders in the church. Joyce Meyer and her best selling “Battlefield of the Mind.” John Bevere’s message to sufficiently “Fear God” in order to be blessed rather than cursed. Even the very grace oriented Joseph Prince will talk about “not accepting” condemnation. These aren’t necessarily bad as long as they’re not a singular answer.

As long as my heart and head are in agreement, choosing to stand on God’s word is wonderful and right. Yet, what if I try to walk in obedience in my finances for example, and I’m overcome with doubt; or what if I try to walk in rest, and anxiety rears its ugly head? Now it takes great effort and striving to keep going; it becomes difficult to simply just stand on His word.

Denial
The teaching is that if we deny what we feel long enough, eventually it will die, and the new feeling will win. However there are at least two problems with this. One, I don’t know hardly anyone with the discipline to consistently walk this out. Two, it’s a denial of what is actually happening in my heart.

Heart Kindness
This doubt or anxiety is telling me something. There’s an issue in my heart that needs to be dealt with. So instead of fighting these Avoid the Trap of Forcing Christian Victoryfeelings, it is much better to use them as the indicators they are to find the wrong belief they are exposing in my heart. As I can acknowledge my problem to the Lord and hold it before Him, He resolves it. Now my heart and head are back in agreement and I am able to wholeheartedly stand on His word.

Restful Freedom
God has true freedom for us and not just controlled behavior. The fruit of the spirit flows naturally when the Holy Spirit works through an aligned heart. The energy source is clean and healthy underneath. This leads to maintenance free victory, living Romans 6-8 without striving to resist or deny anything.

Prayer Ministry Roots of Powerlessness

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Prayer Ministry Roots of Powerlessness to Break Life Long Patterns

Joe was so frustrated. He was thinking: “My boss never sees my value. I end up doing all the work on a project and the guy that shows up late somehow gets praised all the time. This pattern has repeated with my bosses, pastors, even back to my football coach in high school.” Openness to prayer ministry was the key for Joe.

Joe felt incredibly powerless and frustrated. Regardless of what he tried, it never seemed to lead to advancement. He’s always the “reliable guy” that gets the work done, yet he never receives any real promotion. Seeing the roots of powerlessness gives us a way to overcome it so we don’t stay stuck and frustrated all our life.

Powerlessness is almost always rooted in unresolved issues of the past. Because these issues never got resolved, healing never occurred and no lessons were learned of how to deal with these types of situations in the future. I think this quote applies, “If you always do what yoPrayer Ministry Roots of Powerlessnessu’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

In working with Joe, we examined some of his past experiences with coaches and teachers and bosses. There was some hidden anger in some of these places that he prayed to release. Bigger than that, he saw some core lies he had believed that basically said, “I’m not as good as others; I’m not as worthy.” This led to a pattern of not standing up for himself in a right way in order to not be taken advantage of for the work he does. Because after all, he believed he was “not as worthy as others.” He was able to lift these lies to God in prayer and receive God’s truth for his life. Now, when God said,“You are fearfully and wonderfully made, I’ve always loved you; you have great worth in My sight,” Joe could receive those words deep in his heart.

Joe made peace with his past. But even more than that, he learned lessons – life skills – from these losses. He now knew how God saw him. This empowered Joe to stand up for himself in a right, confident, way with his bosses. He could stand up for himself without putting the other person down or backing them into a corner in any way.

So what was the result of dealing with these unresolved issues? The next time his boss took his hard work for granted, Joe spoke up – not out of frustration but of peace. His boss didn’t even realize Joe was feeling this way and started responding to him with a whole new level of respect.Prayer Ministry Roots of Powerlessness

We all have areas in our lives where we have faced lifelong battles and feel powerless and frustrated. If we can see that there are unresolved issues still causing us pain, and then can learn new life skills from that, we then have a target to aim toward for freedom.

I have seen numerous people conquer areas of lifelong battle and stuckness. There is hope. Don’t fall short of all that God has for you. Call or email us today if we can help. There is no reason to stay stuck feeling frustrated your whole life.

The Sonship Life Skill of Being a Learner

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The Sonship Life Skill of Being a Learner

The Sonship Life Skill of Being a LearnerPower to Grow
Being teachable is one of the most important attributes we can develop and is a core skill of sonship. A core challenge here is denial. People often think they are teachable when the fruit in their lives indicate otherwise.

In my neighborhood live an elderly couple who walk to church each week hand in hand. They are so cute, they seem happy, and it is heartwarming to see them still in love after so many years. Can you imagine all they’ve had to learn to be where they are? How many secret things of their hearts came to light? For example, maybe one likes precision and takes his time and the other values spontaneity and feels too much attention to detail hinders that. Consider the open-mindedness, tolerance, and empathy they must have developed to consider their mates heart, make compromises, and learn new values from each other.

It is distressingly common for Christians in church weekly for many years to still be struggling with the same issues. Still battling anger or addictions, divorce or being controlling, not standing up for themselves and constantly getting run over, or still being a “know it all” and opinionated in even in their 50s and 60s. Shame is at the root of failure to grow issues.

FSU and Freedom to Fail
We’ve often heard our teenagers say, “I hate school.” Up to 53% of students drop out of college, 25% in their freshman year. This week, Cyndi, our son Darren, and I went to Florida State University for Darren’s orientation. Curtis Zimmerman spoke well on the topic of being teachable. He also taught the entire audience how to juggle. “Step one, hold the balls in your hands; now, drop them on the ground and like it!” And the key lesson: you have to be willing to drop the ball if you are going to achieve anything. At the end he demonstrated some jaw dropping juggling in all types of patterns, bouncing it off his knees and arms. He then said, “I’ve been juggling over 20 years and the only reason I can do this so much better than you is because I have dropped the ball 1000s of times more than you have.”The Sonship Life Skill of Being a Learner

The reason people drop out of school and “hate school” is the same reason people can be in church 20 years and still experience no growth–shame. Shame makes it not okay to make a mistake. Shame therefore causes us to put up walls about everything from having it my way in my marriage, to my being opinionated on sports, politics, Christian doctrine or any other subject. Narrowness, chauvinism, and bigotry are the opposites of open-mindedness, tolerance, and empathy.

Fight the Root not the Fruit
When we allow toddlers the freedom to explore and accomplish new movements or tasks, we can see the joy in their faces! This should not change as we get older; God made us for learning. If this is a struggle for you, don’t fight to be more disciplined, seek to discover your shame and performance issues and resolve them.

Spotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer Ministry

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Spotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer Ministry

We continue this week talking about Strongholds in preparation for our upcoming webinar Foundations for Freedom. This week I’m sharing about patterns.

Spotting a pattern of a repeated struggle in our lives can actually be good news. The very pattern that so frustrates us can point out the solution. Patterns can help us connect bad fruit with the bad root.

So, how do you knoSpotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer Ministryw if you have a pattern of bad fruit? When you seem to hit a wall over and over in your life, running into the same circumstances and situations.

Some people seem to end up with overbearing authority figures in their lives again and again. Others start to do okay financially only to have the bottom fall out on them repeatedly. I’ve ministered to people who get walked on or betrayed time after time, with each episode looking very similar to the one before.

Frank found himself in one bad business partnership after another. His partner would end up finding fault with him, saying he was incompetent and then use that to take his clients. There was a lot of pain here for Frank. He could see where it had happened over and over, even as far back as when he was on high school sports teams.

As Frank held this before the Lord, he was reminded of how his own father had betrayed him, promising things and then not coming through and even telling him he couldn’t do anything right and was “good for nothing.”

Spotting Patterns to Resolve in Prayer MinistryFrank knew his dad had been like this and had even at some level forgiven him. But what he had not seen before was the connection of this root of bitterness to how it was defiling his present-tense relationships. As Frank pulled up these roots, he found a new freedom.

Hebrews 12:15 encourages us to look carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

Romans 2:1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

Seeing these truths puts powerful tools in our hands for freedom.

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