I LOVE HOLY SPIRIT

I LOVE HOLY SPIRIT

  • Godhead Parenting, Holy Spirit

I LOVE HOLY SPIRIT

I love Holy Spirit – like crazy, crazy love Him. But we didn’t start out that way. In fact, we have come a long way to get here. I was raised in the church and loved Jesus, but I was never introduced to Holy Spirit as a person. Years later, my mom was dying of cancer and went to a known faith healer. She came back glowing from her experience. She was so convinced of her experience that she stopped taking medication. I later woke up from being in a coma for three months to the news that she had died. A deep-seated judgment came over me against faith healers and the charismatic movement. I seethed in anger, blaming Him for taking my mom. I once found a worship tape from this man and ripped out the ribbon in disgust. I spent 15 years pursuing God passionately while rejecting Holy Spirit. It wasn’t really that I didn’t like the Spirit of God. It was that I adamantly did not like the people who fell into the charismatic camp and ‘went after’ the things of the Spirit. It bothered me. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t understand it. And more so, I concluded it didn’t work because my mom still died. Underneath my resentment was a deep sadness that, despite her attempts to get healed, it didn’t work, and I was left motherless. God, in His mercy, brought me into a season of such deep hunger. I was consumed with the need for more of Him. It is impossible to embrace all the Father has for us without also embracing Holy Spirit. I had to forgive this man for my judgments against him, and suddenly the Lord started showing me how precious and sweet it was that my mom pioneered with Holy Spirit and had a massive encounter with Him before she passed. Judgments towards the things we don’t yet understand blind our ability to receive!

PERFECT FATHER

Ponder this for a moment – EVEN IF you were perfect in all you do as a parent, you still wouldn’t be able to meet all your child’s needs. God designed it that way. There is only one God, and it is He who needs to fill certain places in a child’s heart that even the best of moms and dads can’t reach. That should encourage you that it isn’t all up to you and that you can partner together with the one and only perfect Father to parent your child.

What if, instead of focusing on our perfection in parenting, we focused on our partnering with Him? While I am indeed a parent, I see my role more so as a partner. I get the honor of partnering with the perfect Father in all that I do with my children. That is a recipe for success, even during the seasons of change and uncertainty. When my partner is all-knowing, creative, fully loving, and fully patient, with an endless supply of resources, there is bound to be good fruit. The focus isn’t on being perfect. The focus is on leading our children to the only One who has been, is, and will continue to be perfect – their Father.

VINE AND THE BRANCH

I was talking to a friend about an area in my life that is causing a lot of stress and worry. She brought me to John 15’s story about the vine and the branch, which gives us the key to bearing fruit (which I was not having in this area). Together, we asked Jesus to show us the separation, and I heard “tourniquet,” a device that cuts off the blood flow. Hmmm. That is kind of what it felt like. I asked Jesus what the key to removing the tourniquet was, and I kept hearing “turn, turn, turn, turn,” but it sounded like the word tourniquet was stuck on a broken record, and it didn’t make sense to me at first. I asked Jesus to clarify, and He said, “You keep turning and turning and turning, and the more you move, the more it is cutting off the life-giving flow between us. Stop moving and REMAIN in me.” 

The Vine and the Branches – John 15:1-8 – “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” 

Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing and hand over the reins back to Him.

YELLING

Yes, there is a better way to parent our children than yelling but you do not need more of God so that you stop yelling. You need more of God so that He can comfort and heal those places in your heart so that you do not need to yell anymore. 

GOOGLE PARENTING

Have you ever googled a minor health symptom and begun worrying there might be something wrong after reading all the possibilities? We need to be clear about which kingdom we are releasing over each other and who we are allowing to speak into our lives.

Take a listen to this short podcast where I address what I call ‘Google Parenting.’  Google Parenting by Lisa Max – Let the Children Fly! (anchor.fm) 

JOURNEY NOT DESTINATION

The goal is not to be airlifted and dropped in the middle of the ocean just to say you have arrived in the depths. The goal is to do the journey with Him every step of the way. He is much more interested in your JOURNEY with Him than He is with your destination. So, what do you have going on today? Do it WITH Him.

THE GOD WHO SEES

Someone needs to declare this over themselves today. “YOU ARE THE GOD WHO SEES MY NEED!” Say it until you have faith for it.

CLASS REVIEW

“This course is a gift because it’s facilitating deeper intimacy with the Godhead. I do not seek to provide parents with information but rather TRANSFORMATION.”

DISPENSARY VS. DEPENDENCY

How many of you could say in this hour, “I feel like I am doing everything right yet not producing the fruit that I desire”? Your A plus B is not equaling C! I confronted Hudson on his attitude towards his family after he came home from a friend’s house. I fully understand that his friends meet a profound need in this season of life, but that doesn’t mean he gets to be rude or disrespectful to us when he returns. A few hours later, he bounced back inside the house from being with his friend, full of joy and kindness. He gave me a big hug and told me he loved me. I thought he got it and was proud of him for receiving my correction. But two minutes later, he asked for a big favor. I felt slimed. He did what I told him to do and even did it ‘right,’ but his motives were for what he could get out of me, not out of genuine affection. A dispensary is a room where medicines are prepared and provided. No one ever lives there but stops by when they need something, generally to put them out of their physical or emotional misery. Dependency is the state of relying on or needing someone or something for aid, support, or help. God invites us to depend upon Him through confidence and trust in who He is. We are called to live in this continued posture with Him.  Are we doing all of the ‘right’ things in the ‘right’ way but coming to Him like a dispensary attempting to get something from Him to alleviate our pain and discomfort, or are we coming to Him out of the confidence we need Him? I am confident in this hour that God is removing the dispensary from the church and body. He is calling us into a deeper dependency upon His nature, character, and heart for us. The question is, do we really want Him or just what He can do for us? 

HEAD OF THE HOUSE

If God is indeed the head of our household, then perhaps we should give Him more room to speak, move, and reveal Himself to each of us. He longs to be invited into any given situation and is always faithful to accept.

THE KINGDOM ERA

The Kingdom Era will be marked by families moving from busyness to connection. Anxiety to empowerment. Compromise to authority. Mark my words – this is what God is doing in families, and you either align yourself with Him, or you miss it because you refuse to let go of the old. 

Church Era in families – busyness, anxiety, compromise. 

Kingdom Era in families – connection, empowerment, authority.