THAT’S YOUR JOB

THAT’S YOUR JOB

  • Authority

THAT’S YOUR JOB

There are some things that no leader, pastor, mentor, friend, or counselor can do for you. Only YOU can use your God-given authority in your own home. There is a spirit attacking our homes (and one of the reasons I believe there has been a demonic attack on our elderly to silence them with C-19), and that is through the spirit of unbelief.

What is the biblical definition of unbelief? Skepticism (doubt as to the truth of something), especially in matters of religious faith. Unbelief is a POISON that gets into the mind and dilutes truth to the point of death (death of belief, conviction, truth, life, and connection). While we all battle unbelief on some level at different seasons in life, there is a real demonic spirit working people’s minds hoping they will bite the bait. There are many ways to open the door, but sexual sin and rebellion (disobedience) are major ones because they seek to find satisfaction outside of Jesus. I have received countless messages this past week alone from parents crying out, “What happened?” The story goes on to say their children had great faith and many God stories but are now doubting everything and turning against Him.

BIND that spirit in your home and LOOSEN it to go. When you deal with the bad, the Bible says you must invite the good to fill their minds, eyes, and hearts with His spirit, power, and love. You do not need to put up with the lying spirit of unbelief in your family. Pray, declare, and cover the minds of your loved ones and children.

WHICH KINGDOM ARE YOU USHERING IN?

The Kingdom of GOD is righteousness, peace, and joy. I can still remember when the eyes of my heart first understood this verse, which was mind-blowing. 

Righteousness – the quality of being morally right or justifiable. Peace – freedom from disturbance; tranquility. Joy – a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. 

Here are the OPPOSITE meanings of the words. 

Righteousness – wickedness/lawlessness. Peace – noise/irritation/conflict. Joy – misery/tribulation/despair. 

Which kingdom are you ushering in? If others partner with lawlessness, noise, conflict, misery, and wickedness, the only way to bring the Kingdom of God is to partner with and release RIGHTEOUSNESS, PEACE, AND JOY! 

Righteousness – doing what is right even when no one else is looking, walking in the fruit of the Spirit, and not repaying evil. 

Peace – being in His presence through worship, prayer, and soaking in His Word so that we release what is saturated inside of us – declaring peace to hostile situations. 

Joy – Coming out from under the orphan spirit and aligning our thoughts with the FAVOR He gives us. Having dance parties, singing in the rain, and choosing to be joyful. 

Deuteronomy 30:19 – “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!” Which kingdom are you ushering in? 

COMPASSION & VALIDATION

How many of your children, especially younger ones, are having unusual meltdowns and not wanting to be away from you? While this can be rooted in many things, including normal development, I am hearing so many parents reporting this issue, and I think it has more to do with the effects of C-19. First, there is so much in the atmosphere. While we are getting stronger and more resilient, I sometimes walk into a store and feel so gripped with anxiety (which is not coming from me). I leave and feel better. This is being released from others. Those in charge of your children (teachers, friends, in-laws, sitters, church, etc.) are releasing their emotions, and children can pick up on it. Keep going after walking in authority over the fear and releasing peace. Second, children hear that C-19 causes death and their minds naturally worry if that will happen to them or their parents. When you have to leave, assure them you are okay, that you will return, and they are safe. When a child has a meltdown, they only need TWO things – compassion and validation. CV medicine, as I like to call it. Then after they feel safe again and are calmed back down, talk about ways to empower them and increase their capacity to handle it differently the next time.

PASSING FEAR ON TO OUR CHILDREN

Ask any adult who grew up in Minnesota in the ’80s who Jacob Wetterling is, and they will tell you. He was an 11-year-old boy who was abducted while riding his bike home, and his body was not found for 27 years. It left a bone-chilling fear in parents that the same thing could happen to their child. Parents kept their children safe by not letting them go out at night or roam the neighborhood like they once did. Countless parents partnered with FEAR over what happened to Jacob, and it shaped their parenting. The children watched their responses and learned how to handle uncertainty and danger. As a mother now myself, I get it, but what happened is that it taught a generation in that region about fear and feeling unsafe. Those kids, myself included, grew up with an undying fear that something terrible could happen. It was nearly 30 years later that I broke agreement with the fear and learned that I was safe at night.

How you respond to current events NOW has the potential to shape your child and how they respond to future crises. Are you teaching and modeling for them how to walk in fear and panic or confidence and faith? They are watching you and are learning how to respond in times of crisis.  If you are partnering with fear and want to be free from it, let’s talk about it. We have got to realign our children so that they do not grow up being afraid and managing fear. There is a difference between truth-based concern that should move us into wisdom vs. creating a demonic stronghold.

TOUGHER VS. STRONGER

Going through a crisis in and of itself does not make one stronger. In fact, in the natural, tragedy has the recipe to make one hardened, full of fear, and erect walls around their heart to keep it safe. How does a crisis make you stronger, then? By allowing God to purify those areas that are coming up while you are enduring the crisis. If we don’t allow God access to those places (the fear, poverty mindsets, lack, smallness in thinking, lack of faith, feeling unsafe, etc.), we will gain endurance in the crisis, not strength. We will be able to say, “I went through a divorce/disaster/death,” but you carry the same weight with you. Others allow God to purify them in their crisis, taking whatever is coming up to the surface to Him. They are the ones who say, “I went through a divorce/disaster/death and am a stronger person for it.” The choice in a crisis is to either medicate your flesh with things that make you feel temporarily safe (food, shopping, porn, denial, social media, avoidance, anger outbursts, etc.) or to steward the uncomfortable emotions and give God room to purify you. You may not be able to stop the crisis, but you do have a choice in either partnering with God’s redemptive work in you in the midst or resisting it. Tough has to do with endurance and how much you can go through. Strong has to do with strength. We don’t just want to say we endured hard things. We want to allow it to build our faith, emotional, relational, and spiritual muscles, which makes us stronger. Whatever the weight that is in your heart/mind is the very thing that, when given to God, makes you stronger!

FEELING SCARED

A friend messaged me this: “Last night, our son (age 6), who can feel things in the atmosphere, said he felt scared and didn’t know why. His father explained that other people are afraid of something he doesn’t need to be afraid of. This would normally result in many discussions. But last night, he said, ‘Oh, okay. Can I talk to Jesus about it?’ To which the answer was, ‘Of course, bud!’ He got quiet, the room shifted, and he fell asleep! Yay, Jesus!”

IF A SIX-YEAR-OLD IS LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT TO TALK TO JESUS ABOUT FEELING SCARED, WHAT’S OUR EXCUSE? There is a KEY in this testimony. He felt it, talked to Jesus about it, and rested. It’s okay to feel, but we must bring it to Jesus for the rest to come.

A FOUR-YEAR-OLD TAKES ON THE SEX INDUSTRY

We were at a store years ago, and I instructed the kids to stay by the cart while I ran down the aisle to get something. When I came back, Ellie, who was four then, said to me, “Mom, this is really bad.” I asked what she was talking about, and she pointed to the display of calendars. I saw things like Hello Kitty, cute puppies, etc. She kept saying that it was really, really bad. Finally, she pointed to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar. What was so incredible was she had NO reference for sexual inappropriateness. We seldom have the TV on, and the movies they watch are highly screened. I hadn’t explained to them about inappropriate dress because it was never an issue then, and they are always with me, but her SPIRIT felt the atmosphere. Using it as a teachable moment, I pulled the kids aside and asked what we should do about it. One said we should hide all of the calendars so no one could buy them. I explained how that would be very dishonoring to the manager, who had a legal right to sell them. Another child suggested we buy all of them and throw them away, so I explained how that would only encourage the store to buy more. I reminded them that they had authority over the atmosphere (in this case, a sexual one) and could exercise it. Without skipping a beat, Ellie said, “Jesus, send Your angels to hide these inappropriate calendars.”’ Just then, a man passed us, and as soon as he got side by side with the calendars, his head flipped in the other direction. Then another man walked by, and the same thing happened. The THIRD guy walked by (by now, we were all watching), and the moment he got to the display of calendars, his head immediately turned in the opposite direction. While we all left with a bit of awe over how God did that, what was most important is that we exercised our authority on earth as it is in heaven. In heaven, women are not used for casual sexual gratification, so we had every bit of authority, and all of heaven backing us, to bind that up! When a four-year-old uses her authority in Jesus’ name, it is as good as if Jesus said it Himself. That’s pretty powerful! Could you imagine a generation of little ones who knew who they were and saw it for what it was – ‘bad’ and had the tools of heaven to do something about it?

SO ANGRY

We were on a ministry trip and my son could not shake his attitude. After days of it wearing us all down, I sent him to retire early that night. I heard him crying in his bed and went to him. He began to say, “Mom, I am so angry, but I don’t know why.” At that moment, I knew what was going on. A well-known Christian leader said earlier that day that they could barely sleep at night because of all of the anger in the church (over a particular issue). I led him through a prayer to take authority over the anger and to release the opposite (peace, unity, clarity), and instantly his little body shifted. If you have a child who can ‘flip like a switch’ out of nowhere, it could be that they are very sensitive to the atmospheres around them. I was this way as a child, and it brought about a lot of conflicts because no one, including myself, understood why I could be perfectly fine one moment and angry or filled with anxiety the next. In my mind, nothing was bothering me, but it was like something had come over me. Once I realized I was coming into an atmosphere of ‘stuff,’ I began to learn how to take authority over it and flip it.

BABY FEAR

I once saw a young single mom asking for help on Facebook. She told this story: Suddenly, her baby daughter didn’t like her car seat and was having difficulty getting her strapped in. There were THIRTY-FOUR responses: give her a treat when you put her in, give her a new toy, etc. One response even said to give her Tylenol every time they had to go somewhere. The key word in her story was “suddenly.” I asked her what happened leading up to it. And she explained that the baby had been really sick for a week with a high fever. They all were itching to get out after a week at home and thought the baby was well enough to go to Wal-Mart. The minute they pulled onto the highway, the baby started violently throwing up. And since then, she wouldn’t sit in her car seat. Can you picture being so small and having your body violently throwing up for the first time? You are strapped tightly into a car seat and can’t fully heave forward (talk about restraint!). You have vomit all over you and aren’t old enough to communicate with your mom. That is a scary situation for anyone, much less a helpless baby. I told her that I believed she was dealing with a spirit of fear. The enemy doesn’t care how little or cute she is. She opened the door by being afraid, and he jumped! It’s his job, and he does it well. A week later, I ran into the grandma and asked how it was going, and she told me that now the baby would scratch herself to the point of bleeding, and it took two adults to get her strapped in. I will be honest in saying that my blood boils when the enemy is all over our children, and parents are clueless! This is where we have been so duped by the church and need to wake up!

I asked Grandma if she knew how to take authority over the spirit of fear, and she said she didn’t. I walked her through her authority and the prayer that said something like, “Fear, I see you, and you have to go. In the name of Jesus, you have no authority in my vehicle or over my granddaughter. I release peace now over my granddaughter and her car seat.” Done! She messaged me later to say they did it on the way out of church, and the granddaughter immediately went right into the car seat as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t the car seat she was reacting to. It was a demonic spirit that was sitting there waiting to torment her because it had a legal right to be there. Fear is not an emotion; it is a spirit that must be dealt with using our authority in Jesus.

EXPOSING FEAR 2/3

Shock and Awe

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is explained as a tactic based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. This is true in the natural times of war and how the enemy works. The enemy takes situations (opening a bill in the mail, news of a death, low grade, car accident, trauma, etc.) and uses this shock and awe tactic on people, including children. Their entire being is on alert, much like a hand where all the fingers are flexed simultaneously. The brain, mind, emotions, and nervous system are overwhelmed, and in that split-second moment before logic and coping skills kick in, the enemy whispers his lie (“You are all alone,” “No one cares,” “Your God is not powerful,” etc.). When the body, mind, and emotions begin to calm down (like fingers that go back to a relaxed state), the lie remains because, at that moment, the lie FEELS true based on the evidence. The enemy then gets to influence us because we partnered with the lie.

Here is an excellent example of how this plays out. Many in the world are beginning to calm down from the shock and awe over recent events and are overcoming this tactic of the enemy. “No, no, no, I will not be influenced by fear. I do not partner with the idea of doom or lack. I will not bow down, lie down, or shrink back. I am a child of God with a Father who has defeated the spirit behind this attack. I will cling to Him, His Kingdom, His power, His voice, and His resources in this hour.” I WILL arise!

BUILDING WALLS

 A parent was asking me about the child who slams their door and remains in the room upset. Their question included, “I can’t control them,” and something profound rose within me. No, they are right that control-based parenting is ineffective for the long haul and does little to address the child’s heart. However, I think there is a lot of space between “I can’t control them,” and “there is no way I will lay down my authority that fast when the enemy comes to build a wall with my child.” Let me explain. The purpose of a wall in the natural (bushes, fences, room dividers, retaining wall) is to hold something in and/or keep something out. It creates a physical boundary line that communicates “you can’t get through.” We build walls in our hearts when we are hurt or afraid to keep the bad out and to self-protect ourselves from getting hurt again. This makes logical sense, EXCEPT #1. It keeps the bad out but also keeps the good out. #2. It traps the bad so that it can’t escape and causes us to carry the hurt/offense around. #3. God never intended us to carry the job of self-protection. That is His job. When the enemy is working my child to build a wall to keep pain in (and me out), I agree I can’t control them, but boy, mama bear comes out in the spiritual realm. I bind whatever is in operation, ask Holy Spirit to bring into light whatever is in darkness, release comfort to their hearts, and I go after their love language BIG time. When I see my child struggling and needing the comfort of a wall to feel safe, I BACK OFF from parenting their flesh and wrong behavior and go after their heart. My goal isn’t to have perfect kids. My goal is to keep their heart in the palm of my hand and teach them a lifestyle of going to God even in the complicated and messy places. Control? No. Power and authority, YES!