This came to me as I was waking up this morning, and speaking to the Lord about all the evil that is plaguing this world.
I mentioned to Him (as I do every day as I wake up) how much I’d rather be HOME with Him, than be here, and that I cannot wait for That Day.
His exact response at that moment was, “YOU fight FIRE with FIRE; The consuming fire of God fights against the fires of Hell.”
As I started my morning routine and continued to think more about this and discuss this with the Holy Spirit, I felt led to make this statement.
We ARE in a fight for eternal souls; either mankind ends up in “the lake of fire and brimstone” (Rev. 20:10) because they have chosen NOT to follow God and His Word, or They will become a child of the Living Eternal Godhead while here on Earth, and have the fire of the Holy Spirit of God living and working within them, for the remainder of their time here on Earth.
Again, the choice is up to each individual human spirit, WHERE they end up, and what kind of FIRE they give themselves up to.
It is a very rare thing for me to write a poem, but this just flowed out of me minutes ago, after reading today’s Days of Praise devotional, and the Scripture verses that went along with it. It truly is from the Holy Spirit. 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️ When we see and hear all that is going on in the world today, and it literally shakes us to the core, we must keep in mind what the LORD God has said in His Word That He is with us forevermore.
He will never leave nor forsake us, Those who have believed on His Word, He will strengthen, guide, and protect us And take us Home with Him as He said.
So take heart, child of God Your Savior sees and knows all that is going on, And at the precise moment of the Father’s bidding, The Bridegroom’s Bride from the world will be gone.
The LORD is our refuge and strength, He is our Redeemer as well, He is willing to save any and all who call upon His name From the eternal fires of Hell.
So call upon the name of the LORD Make your salvation in Him sure, Because every Word of God will come to pass, This evil will soon no longer endure. —Jeannette Elizabeth 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️ From today’s Days of Praise devotional: April 6, 2023 Our Refuge “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” (Psalm 46:1-2)
“The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble” (Psalm 9:9). What a comfort it is, in these days of turmoil and opposition, to know that our Lord is “a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat” (Isaiah 25:4).
Our refuge is strong and secure. The psalmist testifies, “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust” (Psalm 91:2). Then God answers: “Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee” (Psalm 91:9-10, and see also vv. 10-13).
Not only does our refuge provide safety and protection, but no other refuge will do. After identifying our refuge by the words “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste [or be ‘alarmed’]” (Isaiah 28:16), God warns that those who refuse His true refuge will receive instead His “judgment,” for He “shall sweep away the refuge of lies” (Isaiah 28:17).
The apostle Peter, fresh from his personal encounters with his risen Lord, confronted the Jewish leaders with their serious error of rejection. “This is the stone which was set at nought of you” (Acts 4:11). In his charge, however, he included the precious truth “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (v. 12). Our refuge, our sure foundation, is none other than our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we have “fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18). JDM
The Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, the Third Person in the Triune Godhead, to us when He ascended back to the Father.
The Holy Spirit IS “the Spirit of Truth” and Jesus Himself said “He will guide you into ALL the truth” (Jn. 16:13). He would stay here, dwelling WITHIN each and every true believer of Christ, who are the children of God, UNTIL the Father would remove Him, Who is the Restrainer (2 Thess. 2:7), just before the Time of the End.
Truth is still here. HE, the Holy Spirit, is still here, waiting for those who have yet to accept Christ into their lives, to “call upon the name of the Lord to be saved” (Rom. 10:13; Joel 2:32; Ps. 145:18; Acts 2:21; 4:12).
NOW is the acceptable time to call upon His Name, BEFORE the time of wrath and judgment to come. As it is written in 2 Cor. 6:2, “Now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
After this time, there will be only judgment. It will come to those who did not want to have anything to do with the Truth.
“Thy Word IS Truth” -John 17:17.
The only way for eternal salvation and redemption, is with the TRUTH of the Word of God, for the Lord Jesus IS the LIVING Word of God.
He IS Truth.
If you deny the TRUTH in your life, you deny Him (Matt. 10:33).
If you SEEK the TRUTH, you WILL find Him (Deut. 4:29).
I beg you, dear ones, to SEEK truth while it is still here, and able to be found. It is not in a certain building or church. It is IN His Word, because again, HE IS THE WORD. And He IS the TRUTH. You cannot separate one from the other.
The Holy Spirit of God is WILLING to make you understand as much as you can bear, but YOU must SEEK Him out. DO what His Word tells you to do, and SEEK Him, CRY OUT to Him, CALL UPON His Name.
“REPENT, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you SHALL receive the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
God is NOT a man that He should lie (Num. 23:19). What He says, He shall do. EVERY word of God shall come to pass, until is all finished.
Seek the TRUTH now, before the whole world falls into deception of the evil ones. That time is approaching quickly.
I had to share these verses with you all. In order to do so, I had to divide them up into three frames. It all comes from Ezekiel 3. I suggest you read that chapter in its entirety. The Holy Spirit will share with you through me whatever else He feels pertinent at this time in this post. I highly suggest you take His Words in this post very seriously.
🙏🏼Lord God my ✡️Father, please allow every person who truly does seek You out, to find You, and no longer be part of the wrath and judgment that is to come. I plead with You, Abba—hear their cries of conviction, and see how they humble themselves finally before You, to accept Your ✝️Son and Your Word into their lives. 🕊Holy 🕊Spirit🕊, please enter into them, and teach and guide them into all 📖Your truth, with whatever time remains. I ask You this in the name of Jesus, my Lord, my Savior, my Master, and my King—Amen.
You will also see in that chapter, how the Spirit of God LIFTED Ezekiel up in vv. 12 and 14, and in verse 24 it actually says, “But the Spirit ENTERED INTO me (Ezekiel) and set me on my feet, and He SPOKE to me…” He did the same to the Apostle John in Revelation (4:1-2).
The Spirit of God has always been at work within His people-those who He has chosen to speak the very hard things that most people—sometimes even the ones He has chosen (like Jonah!) do not want to hear.
But sooner or later, we realize it IS all TRUTH—He and His Word IS the way, the truth, and the life—so we accept whatever that call is in our lives, and allow the Holy Spirit to ENTER into us, and do His work, until that particular work is finished, or our time here comes to an end.
For Ezekiel, it was not any different. He had a choice—to allow the LORD God to use him as an instrument of WARNING to the people of Israel (“to the Jew first and also to the Gentile”-Rom. 1:16), to turn from their wicked ways, and also warn them of what was to come in the future.
Most did not heed the warnings. Unfortuately, that is still the case to this very day, thousands of years later, and even AFTER the Father sent the Son AS THE ”Stone of offence and Rock of stumbling” (Isaiah 8:14, Jer. 6:21) to the House of Israel. Later on, it was to the Gentiles, to provoke Israel to jealousy (Deut. 32:21) as Paul the Apostle stated in Romans 11:11 and verse 14, having that verse in Deuteronomy come to pass.
Why would the LORD use His own Son as a Rock of “offence” and stumbling? To get every single human being to hopefully realize that they cannot make it in this life without Him. And also, that once this life is over, they do NOT want to spend eternity, writhing in pain, agony, weeping and gnashing their teeth while in the eternal fires (Matthew 13:42).
It was not going to be an easy job for anyone whom He called to give out such warnings to the masses, whether they were Jews or Gentiles. But the warnings needed to be given, along with the blessings of peace with God, and eventually, eternal life for those who would accept Him and His Word.
Much would be lost along the way for these people, who dared to ”pick up their cross” (Luke 9:23), and follow the LORD God whether it was prior to the Son being born of that virgin (Is. 7:14), the very sign the LORD Himself gave mankind, so to know what was to be. And yet, humans STILL chose not to listen, and rejected the Very One who would be able to save them from those eternal fires.
The messages of warning still go on today. The LORD still has much in His Word that needs to come to pass. There are many like myself, trying to get people to “hear what the Spirit has to say to the churches” (Rev. 2:11).
But as the Lord Jesus said in that verse which was repeated throughout Revelation 2 and 3, and even WAY back in Deuteronomy 6:4, which started the Shema—“HEAR, O Israel,…”, one needs to “have an EAR—meaning, they need to be LISTENING to what the LORD God is saying through His Word, and through the people, His prophets, who are trying desperately to get these humans TO listen to what He is saying.
You are being given a loving warning, from the Most High God, and His Son, my Lord, my Savior, my Master, and my King, to HEAR what the Spirit of God—the HOLY SPIRIT is saying and warning to you all about what IS to come.
I do not want blood on my hands. I have done enough wrongs in my life, that thankfully, the Lord has forgiven me for, since I have confessed them before Him. YET, I also do not want to waste any more of the very little time we have left here, to go on living my life as a superficial Christian, barely doing or speaking anything, and worse yet, doing all that I have done, HALFheartedly, as the Father plainly told me I was serving Him beforehand.
That was said to me a little over six years ago, and I have been a believer all my life. But He wanted me to WHOLEHEARTEDLY serve Him, in the way and manner HE chose to do, NOT my way. Hence the life I have been living in these last six plus years.
There are always “consequences” to serving the LORD; those consequences are always in our favor eternally, but here on Earth, for those who are closest to us especially, there may be many “losses” along the way. I have had my share of those recently, and unfortunately, those losses which produce a broken heart is par for the course when serving Him.
People must make their own choices—“free will” is a gift from God, and He cannot overstep His own “prime directive”; it must be honored, if one chooses to reject Him, and the very people He has chosen to spread His Word, and give out His warnings. He is a very fair and Just God, although those who refuse to get to know Him think exactly the opposite.
Warnings will continue to be given, even when the most horrible time the world will ever face, will begin. It is being set up now, with certain pieces of that puzzle being put “into place” even as I write this out.
For those who desire to know, and to be prepared, do what the Scriptures tell you to do, and “SEEK the LORD” now, while you still have time, in THIS “time of grace” that has been given to us, but WILL soon end (Deut. 4:29; Jer. 29:12; is. 55:6-7; Ps. 14:2; 2 Chron. 7:14; Ps. 63:1; Ps. 9:10; Matt. 7:7; James 4:8).
I will end this with Psalms 119:2, and I beg you, dear ones, to PLEASE consider seeking the Lord, humbling yourselves before Him, and accepting Him into your lives, now, while you still have breath in you, and before the judgment of God begins (and no, we do NOT know the “day or hour” (Matt. 24:36).
For thousands of years He has been patient. He has sent His Son, Jesus, to be the perfect sacrifice-the spotless Lamb that was slain (Rev. 5:6), to save people from their sins, and from the WRATH that eventually has to be poured out (Is. 51:17; Ps. 11:6; Ps. 75:8; Matt. 13:41-42, 49-50; Luke 3:7; Rom. 1:18; 2:5; 5:9; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Rev. 6:16-17; 11:18; 12:12; 14:19; 15:1, 7; 16:1, 19, 19:15). God always keeps His Word. He has been gracious to give us this time to seek Him, and many warnings to heed.
But that time is running out. The “day” and the “hour” will SOON come upon this Earth, for the Lord Jesus Himself said that He IS the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), the First and the Last, the Beginning, and the END.
There WAS a beginning (Genesis 1:1), and there WILL be an end (Zech. 14:1-21; Matt. 24:14; 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 13:1-18; 20:1-15).
“Blessed are they that KEEP His testimonies, and that SEEK Him with the whole heart.” Psalm 119:2
If they have forsaken you, remember them by praying for them.
If they curse you, even to your face, do not retaliate-bless them, or say nothing and at least pray for their souls, and leave the judgment for them up to the Lord.
As much as it hurts your heart, if they choose to forsake you, let them go. Do not chase after them. Why?
Because God does not force anyone to love Him or follow Him. And if we are to follow in His ways, we are to do the same. Love them, but do not force them to love you back.
Let them go. Pray for them. Desire God’s Spirit to draw them to Himself, in order to save their souls. But do not force them to be kept in your life when they do not want to be there.
There will be much more persecution among the Lord Jesus’ followers-His Children-in the days to come, because those who are opposed to God, have their minds set on the world, and the things of this world (Rom. 8:6-8).
Those in the world who mind the things of the flesh, do not accept anyone who abides in the Spirit of God, and walks in His Way (1 Cor. 2:13-14). They are unable to understand, hence the reason there is animosity towards a believer in Christ, even if that person is their own family member.
Let the Spirit of God deal with them-all of them. Stay the course. Let them go, but continue to love them and pray for them. Endure to the end, for as the Lord Jesus said, “great is your reward in Heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets which were before you” (Matt. 5:12).
The path to follow IS a hard Path. Be prepared TO lose much…here.
But look forward to that “inexpressible and glorious joy” that Peter spoke of (1 Peter 1:8), which is “the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls…”(1 Pet. 1:9)
Let them go. Pick up your Cross, move forward in Christ, and know that He loves them even more than you do; He will do all in His Power to convince them of His Truth. But He cannot go against His own “prime directive”—the very Free Will gift He has given every person. It ultimately will be their own choice, to accept Him or reject Him.
Now go and fulfill Deuteronomy 6:5, Eph. 6:10-18, & Ps. 27:14.
REALIZE, child of the LIVING ETERNAL God, that you DO have the THIRD Member of the Triune Godhead LIVING WITHIN you, Who sees, hears, and KNOWS all that you do and say, at ALL times.
He IS the Holy Spirit, the LIVING Spirit of God—the SAME Spirit Who “was hovering over the face of the waters” in Genesis 1:1.
That could be an awesome revelation to you, or, it could be a frightening realization of just how much the LORD God knows how you have conducted your life here on Earth up until now.
If there ever was a time in modern day “post-Christianity” that we should be calling upon the name of the Lord, it is NOW. He was not “just a fairy tale”… He was not “just a myth”… He was not just a regular man… He was not just “a good man”… He was not just “a good teacher”… He was not just “a prophet”… He WAS in glory with the Father BEFORE He had to fulfill His mission here on Earth (Jn. 17:5)… That mission was to be the one and only acceptable sacrifice (Eph. 5:2; Heb. 9:26; 10:26) that the Father would recognize as a way to save and redeem people from their sins… He IS the ONLY way back to the Father (Jn. 14:6); no other way is possible… His Spirit-the Holy Spirit of God, is placed into every one of us (Gal. 4:6) who “call upon the name of the LORD to be saved (Rom. 10:13)… Jacob himself said, “I wait for Your salvation, O LORD” (Gen. 49:18). Those who longed for God to be with them, finally had that prayer answered when God the Father sent His Son to Earth, to make a way for humanity to be reconciled to their Creator. That night in the manger, Mary gave birth to the One–the ONLY One Who could free mankind from any and all demonic bondage: His Name is called JESUS. And He is the same Savior as He has been-YESTERDAY, TODAY, and FOREVER (Heb. 13:8) Will you recognize Him as your Savior and Lord today, of all days? Get (re)acquainted with Him this CHRISTmas. Make it an eternal present you give yourself; He will be the best gift you could ever receive.💖✝
To know that there IS a way to be forgiven and cleansed of all those wrongdoings, iniquities, faults; To know that there IS a Person out there that will continue to love you, no matter how many mistakes you may have made in the past;
To recognize AND account for your sins and faults, whether they were ignorantly done or on purpose; To be FORGIVEN by not only them, but more importantly, the One to whom all Judgment of Mankind belongs;
And to be BLESSED to know that not only is reconciliation possible with Him, but to then be able to spend ETERNITY with Him, having complete PEACE and JOY in your heart, knowing someone loved you enough to forgive you.
How can one not take the Lord up on that Promise of His? Even though others may not want to forgive you, HE WILL. His LOVE endures FOREVER.
Rich or poor, single or married, male or female, old or young. It does not matter where you are from; It does not matter what color you are. It even does not matter what faith you hail from, or have no belief. What DOES matter, is that One Day, you WILL be in front of The One Who created you. You will stand before Him. He WILL judge you righteously. It does not matter to HIM that you may not believe that will happen; it will STILL happen.
That Day is getting closer. These messages and warnings will continue to go out, to all who “have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7,17).
The Time is getting shorter; the days are hastening to the End of Days. There IS an End, for there was a Beginning. Are you ready? Is your soul ready?
Or are you going to dismiss this one as well and call me and the others who warn, “a nut”, “crazy”, “Bible thumper”, etc.?
Say what you want of me; I do will of my Father and my King. I take no orders from man, nor do I serve him any longer. As it is written, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven” (Matt. 6:10). His will WILL be done, whether man agrees with it or not. Where do you stand with Him? Make sure you are on the side of the King, and not on the side of the ones who rebelled against Him. Their sentence is eternal death. Do you wish the same?
Remember what is written, “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the one who DOES the will of my Father Who is in Heaven” (Matt. 7:21). Do you wish to do the will of man, so you may have honor from them? Are they in charge of where your soul ends up? Can they even save themselves? Certainly not.
Where do you stand with Him? Where WILL you stand on That Day—on His left, Or on His right? (Matt. 25:33,41; Eccl. 10:2)
I saw a devotional this morning, that spoke about how we have peace with the LORD God when we are awake, but especially, when we lay down to sleep. It quoted Psalm 4:8, and the prayer taken from it that my Godmother Helen used to have us kids to say before we were put to bed each night when I visited my cousins—“Now I lay me down to sleep…”.
But the verse that stood out to me this morning was from Psalm 23:4. As I read the verse over and over again, the words “valley of the shadow of death” resonated within me. For David, who had many enemies, being under attack by his king, and even by his own son at one point, I can see how this Psalm poured out of his soul and onto paper.
I looked up the verse, and the specific word צלמות “salmavet”, which in Hebrew is “of the shadow of death”. It is also defined as “death-shadow” (of distress, extreme danger), “deep shadow”, and “deep darkness” (of place of the dead). Even though they are mostly used figuratively, I sense there is a more literal meaning of it than we would like to admit.
This world has become more and more “the valley of the shadow of death”. In fact, I dare say that literally walking in this world right now IS like walking through the “shadow of Death”—the same Death that is mentioned in Revelation 20:14–the Greek word for death being θάνατος = “Thanatos”, the name for the ancient Greek god of Death (in Rome, the god was “Mors”). Thanatos may sound familiar, since in recent years the Avengers movies had a supervillain character named “Thanos” which first appeared in the Marvel comics. He most certainly lived up to the name in those movies.
Some other Bible verses that include “the shadow of death” or the other definitions of it are in Psalm 107:10–“There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death, Prisoners in misery and chains…” Boy, does that sound a lot like the people who basically are the “walking dead” on this Earth right now, who deny the very GOD who allows them to still have BREATH in their lungs.
Another verse is from Matthew 4:16 which is taken from Isaiah 9:2, “The people that walked in darkness (חשׁך)- kho-shek’, which means “darkness, obscurity”; “darkness”, “secret place”, “death”, “misery”, “IGNORANCE”—!, “sorrow”, “wickedness”. Hmm, very interesting how that is “figuratively” used, because the way our world is right now—actually, it has BEEN that way, but MOST of us have been ASLEEP, eating the “Lotus cookies” (some of you will 😉get that), busy with our own lives, not paying attention to what really has been going on in the world, both physically and SPIRITUALLY.
We human spirits have partaken in “panem et circenses”—“bread and circuses—a WHOLE lot of distraction from what has really gone on in this world—the work of the evil ones who “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10)—the HUMAN PUPPET AGENTS of SATAN who have continued his work for millennia, because he vowed to himself to take as many with him as possible to the Pit and ultimately, to “the LAKE WHICH BURNETH WITH FIRE AND BRIMSTONE; which is the SECOND DEATH” (Rev. 21:8). That “second death” is WORSE than the first, because it is PERMANENT and ETERNAL.
WHAT needs to happen if one wants to avoid that “valley of the shadow of death”? You cannot avoid that, for WE ALL who are living ad breathing, are walking IN that valley right NOW—it is HERE on EARTH; it IS EARTH. Hence the reason why David wrote it the way he did, “Even though I WALK THROUGH the valley of the shadow of death”; David realized he was IN that valley throughout his lifetime. This entire life is about HOW to walk through that valley of death, misery, destruction, evil works, etc., and come out FROM it, with the help of the ONLY ONE Who can “deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13) that we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste of every single day of our lives. THAT Person is within the Eternal Triune Godhead—the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus DEFEATED Hell and Death (very real evil spirits) at the Cross, and OWNS the keys (Rev. 1:18)!! He is the ONLY ONE Who was RESURRECTED, and because of His victory at the Cross, as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” The Lord Jesus has made a way back to the Father—the ONLY way, for He IS “the way, the truth, and the LIFE” (Jn. 14:6), and there is NO OTHER WAY out of eternal DARKNESS, the shadow of DEATH, or DAMNATION, except one who acknowledges Jesus as LORD and SAVIOR of their life (Romans 10:9-10,13).
If you want out of the “valley of the shadow of death”, you first must REPENT (Ez. 14:6; 18:30; Matt. 3:2; Mk. 1:15; Lk. 13:3,5; Acts 2:38; 8:22). The Lord Jesus warns once again of what will happen if people do not repent of their sins and wickedness: “Therefore, repent. If not, I will come to you SOON and war against them with the sword of My mouth” (Rev. 2:16). The “sword” IS His Word, and He, Jesus, IS THE WORD OF GOD.
SEEK the Lord and His Word out. BE HUMBLE and ASK Him to forgive you of your sins, and LIVE as a child of the King, Who WILL hold your hand and walk WITH you, “through the valley of the shadow of death” here, UNTIL the “appointed time” (Dan. 8:19; 11:35; Hab. 2:3; for Him to come back and “redeem His people” (2 Sam. 7:23; Job 5:20; Ps. 69:18; Is. 50:2; Jer. 15:21), and I will end with Hosea 13:14a: “I SHALL ransom them from the power of Sheol; I SHALL REDEEM them from DEATH…”
Walking in the Dark with Faith 