Tag: #spiritualwarrior

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SCENT MANAGEMENT

My second daughter turned 14 years old over this past weekend. As I watched her enjoy her birthday celebrations, I was reminded of her as a newborn infant, clutching to only me at first, rooting for my breast. Her actions were that of one who could detect the unique signature odor of her mother and rested in the comfort and trust which that scent represented.

I woke this morning being instructed by the Holy Spirit. As I slowly awoke, I heard the statements:
• “Sin multiplies.”
• “Sin carries a stench.”
• “Unclean spirits are attracted to that scent.”
• “Sin, when it is full blown, leads to death.”

I not only heard the statements but saw scripture references simultaneously: Genesis 6; Genesis 4; Romans 6; James 1. So I hopped out of bed, grabbed my study tools and, with the memory of my daughter as an infant and those 4 statements as my focal points, went to studying. I found out something very important: spirits are attracted by the spiritual odor I exude. My scent attracts and repels. Managing my spiritual scent then is another strategy of spiritual warfare.

In my research, I found out that each person has a distinct odor, a natural scent called their signature odor. For newborn infants, though they can’t recognize their mother by sight, their highly sensitive sense of smell causes them to recognize their mother by her natural scent, by her signature odor. I also discovered that my infant becomes so familiar with my scent that she can even detect the difference, in odor, between my breast milk and that of another mother’s. This is why mothers of newborn infants are often cautioned against wearing strong scents such as perfumes or fragrance skin products. The baby’s sense of smell is so sensitive that strong scents/odors can become overwhelming and interfere with their sense of taste.

Wanting to understand what the Spirit was teaching me, I delved further into my research on body odor. You see, I have learned from the word and from experience that the natural, physical world mirrors the spiritual world in some ways. If we exude scents/odors from our bodies from which others can detect and extract accurate information, then our spirits also exude scents/odors from which other spirits can detect and extract accurate information about our condition or state. Our body odor can inform a sensitive or highly trained individual of various body conditions (like problems with specific organs, hormonal changes, disorders), choices (like diet), emotional state, and life stages.

As I thought on this and its parallel in the spiritual realm, I was reminded of the fact that not only am I an ‘ezer, a watcher, but I am also being watched and being targeted. After all, I am in a war. Just as I am studying warfare, so that I would not be ignorant of my adversary’s devices, even so he is studying me as prey (1 Peter 5:8). The clues I give, through the scents my spirit exude, inform that predator of my state. Then he chooses whether to retreat or attack.

But this doesn’t only apply to me. It applies to everyone, even my children who may not be as skilled in the warfare as I am. I thought of my 14-year old daughter, her current stage in life and her hormonal shifts which will likely affect her emotional state. I thought of what “odor” she may be emitting spiritually that may get the attention and “favor” of unwanted spirits. I pictured them, just like the beast who crouched at Cain’s door, waiting for a foothold to enter in and master/overpower him (Genesis 4:5-7).

I thought, “For the sake of my children, I need to manage my spiritual scent so that my children’s spirit can always locate my unique, signature odor AND find that place of safety, comfort and rest.” I cannot afford for my scent to be masked by the cares and stresses of life, lest they would not be able to find their ezer warrior that God has assigned to them for their “help”. For their sake, I must manage my scent so that I do not attract unwanted attention and cause them to have to fight unnecessary battles.

This Mother’s Day 2020, I want to encourage you, as an ezer warrior for your family, to manage your scent. Don’t let your children or those entrusted in your care smell the stench of anxiety or fear exuding from you. Don’t let the cares of life so overwhelm and overcharge you that your environment becomes a beacon for unclean spirits. Fill your space with the aroma of sacrificial praise and sacrificial worship. Attract the presence and favor of God and repel the crouching and stalking of the adversary. This Mother’s Day reproduce for your children the first gift they got from you, after birth, the gift of your scent.

DIG DEEPER:
Bible Study: What’s that Smell?

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TIME MANAGEMENT: Warfare Against The PRESS

I awoke this morning remembering a vision that I awoke to about a year ago. It was a vision showing the state of spiritual activity on Earth. In the vision, I did not see fixed bodily forms but rather an understanding of concepts and truths revealed to us in scripture. In this “vision”, there were three layers of activity in the Earth.

  1. In the first and uppermost layer, there was Jesus seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come, with all things under His feet (Ephesians 1:20-22).
  2. In the second layer, the one far below Jesus Christ’s, there were these principalities, powers, mights, dominions, and all sorts of names actively moving around, influencing the activities of humans on Earth.
  3. The third layer, the lowest of the three, had at its top (just below the bottom of the second layer) the things that consume our daily living: jobs/careers, marriage/relationships, finances, children, desires, emotions, and the list went on and on. They circled and amassed as a crowd at the upper area of that third layer to the point where they became a barrier, a wall. I stood on the floor, at the bottom, of this third layer, with my hands outstretched and my eyes lifted in prayer. Though at my core I am a spirit, my physical body with its dependence on my physical senses to understand and navigate this physical world, kept me grounded, earth-bound, limited in my ability to pierce through the barriers of the second and third layers so as to partner with Jesus Christ in victory, through prayer.

Why did I get this vision? At the time, for about 3 weeks, I had been consistently spending quality time with the Lord, early in the morning, at the beginning of each day. This communion and fellowship with the Holy Spirit was so consistent that I would awake in the morning hearing words of advice, counsel, and admonition.

I experienced what the prophet Isaiah spoke about in Isaiah 50:4 – “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.” I like how the NIV translation states it: The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.However, the week prior to my awakening with this vision, the constancy in my communion with the Holy Spirit was broken. The cause? Busyness. That week I was super busy. The busyness so drained me that I became tired and weary. I was so exhausted from the many obligations that I had to fulfill that I would awake late in the morning and not be able to have that quality time with the Holy Spirit. Getting the children to school on time and my arriving to work also on time became a great effort because of how worn out I felt.

Nonetheless, I awoke that morning with this picture in my mind and realized that the Holy Spirit was being my Help. He had penetrated the barrier of tiredness and exhaustion to reveal to me the attack and strategy of the enemy. I later called this strategy The PRESS. You see, the enemy had filled up my atmosphere with busyness so as to cause excessive exertion and lack of sleep. His purpose was to use the PRESS of my daily activities to block my access to the heavenlies. I learned in my Science classes that the atmosphere is very important to life on Earth and does many things to help protect life and help life to survive. The enemy’s agents in the second layer were influencing the timing of these activities to create a PRESS.

That morning the Holy Spirit taught me the importance of being aware of the condition of my atmosphere; the importance of being intentional in my warfare against the PRESS, which manifests as crowdedness. Crowdedness speaks of filling a space almost completely, leaving little or no room for movement.

The enemy’s desire is to keep us Earth-bound by keeping us crowded. When we are blocked in, our movements in the spiritual realm becomes restricted and we are unable to access our true position where we will experience victory. He works with TIME and uses time to frustrate our purposes so as to keep us locked in. The Holy Spirit revealed to me that the weapon of warfare needed to counteract this attack of the PRESS is the discipline of time management. Learning how to be and becoming disciplined as a manager of the time I am given will defeat CROWDEDNESS in my life.

Now why did I awake to this one-year old memory? Because promotion is fast approaching and I will be faced with some new obligations and new battles for which I lack experience. If I am to make my way prosperous and have good success at that new level, then I need to become more skillful in my warfare against the PRESS.

Could it be that the exhaustion and frustrations that you have been feeling lately are a result of the PRESS? Have you been crying to the Lord because you can’t seem to find TIME for Him as you would like? Join me as I continue to explore principles associated with this warfare gleaned from the lives of Zaccheus and Martha.

DIG DEEPER:

  1. Devotional: Isn’t There Anyone to Help Me?
  2. Bible Study: Surrounded? Run Before!

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New Year, New Training

This week has been a week of new year’s resolutions and goals for many. As I move around, I hear some speaking of this year as a time of newness and a fresh start. Others view it as an opportunity to start over or to attempt some things again. For me, this new year – this start of a new decade – is another opportunity to become more skillful in warfare; the kind of warfare which, at its roots, is about listening to and obeying God’s commands. With this year comes new training for battles for which I lack experience.

On New Year’s Day, on our way back from a 3-night revival service in Florida, I came across a passage of scripture that grabbed my attention. I later returned to the passage and dug deeper into it, so I could understand what the Holy Spirit wanted to disclose to me. The passage reads as follows:

Judges 3: 1-4 (NIV) These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan  (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):  the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath.  They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses.

This passage indicates a few things that called for my consideration:

  1. Warfare is taught.
  2. The teaching of or training in warfare is initiated and facilitated by God.
  3. Battle experience is necessary to develop skill in warfare.
  4. It is imperative that those who have not had previous battle experience be taught warfare.

Upon consideration, I began to ask myself a few questions, in light of the upcoming year:

  1. What battle experience(s) am I lacking?
  2. What has God allowed to remain in my life from the previous year(s) that would give me the necessary training and experience so that I can become more fit for and skilled in warfare?
  3. What “enemy” has been left in my life for testing and proving; to know whether I would listen and obey the commands of the Lord?

I concluded that, although I may have entered a new year, there will still be some old, remaining, or leftover things that I will have to deal with for my betterment. The Holy Spirit was impressing upon me to be careful not to offer wasted prayers, rebuking and cancelling the very things that the Lord has ordained for my growth and development. He cautioned me that, no matter how many people I hear declaring all newness, remember that all things will not be made new just because it is a new year. However, I must be mindful that those things which are not assigned to be made new, are essential for the perfection of my warfare.

Consequently, I look forward in anticipation to the upcoming new training that God has designed for me. I do not fool myself into thinking that it will be a walk in the park. I know that I will have some challenging moments and may even fail some of the lessons and accompanying tests. Nevertheless, I surrender to the training God has chosen for me and expect that, if I tarry, by the end of this year, I will be more skillful and experienced in warfare.  I would have gained more ground for the kingdom.

Therefore, I go forth this year joining with the psalmist David, declaring, “Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle” – Psalms 144:1 (NKJV). Will you join me in God’s School of Warfare?

DIG DEEPER:
Bible Study – The Greatest Teacher of Warfare

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A Weapon of War – ME

What if I was never born?

How would this world be different if my existence and all that such an existence affected were obliterated?

How have I changed the world in a positive way?

Today I celebrate the end and beginning of another year on earth. As I reflect on my day of birth and my purpose for being sent to earth by the Most High God, I am reminded of the fact that the knowledge of who I am is one of my greatest weapons in this spiritual war. I am reminded that I was sent as a unique weapon of warfare to facilitate change in this world; to promote the advancement of the kingdom of God here on earth. I am reminded that I matter, because my assignment matters. My assignment involves changing individuals, changing nations; enabling change that will cause the will of God to be manifested here on earth.

My reflections bring to mind the memory that my birth and existence spurred my mother to surrender her life to God, which resulted in my father’s salvation, changing the path and trajectory of my family’s life. His subsequent decision, as head of our home, to migrate to another island a few years after my birth, positioned me to reside in a number of different countries, providing me with different perspectives of life here on earth.  Further contemplations reveal how God used these various places of abode to familiarize me with diverse peoples and cultures, an act that would sharpen the weapon called ME.

Experiences such as being a young, single mother then marrying somewhat later in life – being given a second chance at being a mother – continued to shape me into the skilled weapon of warfare that God intended me to be. My marriage to my husband also changed the trajectory of his life, putting him on a path to affect the kingdom in ways that he never imagined. This marriage produced 3 warriors that I was blessed to be a carrier of; my three “arrows”, Persephanie, Grace, and John. The Holy Spirit reminds me that they too were sent on assignment to do great damage to and lead renown wars and revolutions against the kingdom of darkness.

What if I was never born? What would become of so many children who were born with special needs. Shortly after my marriage my husband and I founded the Visionaries for Christ Academy, an educational institution for children ages 6 weeks to 16 years old. Through this institution, we provided education for students with and without disabilities, as well as advocated for their rights to education. This advocacy affected change in our nation’s policies and laws in regards to special education students and their national assessments.

Of course, I cannot forget my assignment to the body of Christ. I reminisce on how God endowed me with the gift of teaching to influence the thought patterns/belief systems of the people of the kingdom as it relates to living as God intended humans to live in this world. I can see the faces of so many whose spiritual eyes were opened, because I yielded to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life.

This is what the Lord said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 9:24 (AMP), “But let the one who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me [and acknowledges Me and honors Me as God and recognizes without any doubt], that I am the Lord who practices lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these things I delight,” says the Lord.

Today I do not boast in myself. I boast in knowing the Lord and being able to carry out His assignment, His will and His counsel as it pertains to my being here on earth. I honor Him by being the vessel, instrument, and weapon that he created and fashioned me to be. I am a weapon of war fashioned by the Almighty.

DIG DEEPER:
1. Devotional : God’s Battle Ax
2. Bible Study: Jael, Wife of Heber the Kenite
3. Prayer Room: I Know Who I Am

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Achsah: A Virtuous Woman

And the daughter of Caleb was Achsah. – 1 Chronicles 2:49

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. – Proverbs 31:10 – 11

The moment I read these verses, Proverbs 31: 10-11, one woman’s name came to mind – Achsah.

According to 1 Chronicles 2:49, Achsah was the daughter of Caleb. This Caleb was Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite (Joshua 14:6), the companion of Joshua, and one of the 12 spies (leaders of the tribes of Israel) who Moses had sent to spy out the Promised Land.

As I stop and revisit what the Bible shares with us about Achsah, I find myself pondering these questions?

What must it have been like to grow up as the only daughter of a national hero? The daughter of one of the only two men of their generation that God permitted to live long enough, not only to enter the Promised Land but, to fight in the battles of conquest?

What must it have been like to be raised by the man who withstood and quieted a mob of hundreds of thousands of people with the words, “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:35) and of whom God Himself testified, “my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it” (Numbers 14:24)

Achsah was a part of the “so-called victims” of whom God promised, “…. your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection.  I the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.” (Numbers 14:31-35)

Achsah was a part of that generation who grew up witnessing the results of the 40-year sentence their parents had received from God. However, unlike her peers, Achsah and her three brothers grew up in a household that was waiting in anticipation for the 40-year promise of God to be manifested in their life: the promise of a bonus inheritance for her father’s wholehearted devotion to God; a family who were waiting for “the war”.

Achsah grew up as the daughter of the warrior Caleb, whose name meant “dog” or “dog-like”. He was a man of faith, courage, and tenacity, even in his old age. Forty five years after God made that promise to him and his descendants, Caleb said to Joshua, “And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said” (Joshua 14: 10-12)

 How did growing up in such an environment help shape Achsah into becoming the virtuous woman that we see in those two short passages of the Bible? Although all we have to instruct us are a total of 12 verses, we can surmise that she grew up with an understanding of what it meant to be a warrior; what it meant to be a military ally. The portrait that I see of her is that of a woman of valor, strength, might, wisdom, efficiency, wealth, and ability; a virtuous woman.

Come with me as I dig deeper into the historian’s account of Achsah and use this snapshot of her life to unveil more of who we are as women, our assignment/purpose and what we have been equipped with for this mission.

DIG DEEPER:
1. Devotional – When Asking Secures His Spoil
2. Bible Study – ACHSAH: Daughter, Wife, Mother