Rise and Fall
- Heidi Eva Jones
- Mar 31, 2022
- 6 min read
Volume 11 Issue 3
Greeting in His Name,
Within the past two years we have seen ups and downs. The world has had it's share of trauma and pain but through it all, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you can still shout the victory. I can hear Maya Angelou saying, " STILL I RISE." The pandemic has taken loved ones and debilitated others but for those who are still in the land of the living, we can RISE. I encourage you as you journey through today's blog entitled Rise and Fall, the race is not given to the swift nor strong but to the one who endure to the end. Hope you find some inspiration, conviction, and queries.
shalom and love,
heidi
There is a song, some years ago, that was played on the radio entitled “Rebuild” by J Moss. The song is from his album entitled “I Gave it Up”. In it he explains that he won’t turn back. He expresses how he is so into you—God, our God of grace and hope. And how God has restored him and put the stamp of ‘it’s done’ on him. And because God has done this he knows he can move in the anointing of God. The words in italics are just a few songs from that album. You can tell from the songs that he has had some life changing experiences and he is at the point of helping others to rise from their fall. He said this in his biography,
"There were times when I was at my human wit’s end and wanted to take myself out! In the midst of all that brokenness - a shattered heart and a shattered life – God picked me up and dealt with me one on one. He said, ‘That emptiness you’re feeling…that’s exactly where you are supposed to be. So many others are feeling that same emptiness, but I need you to be my beacon to show them how to overcome it.’ It was a life changing epiphany for me.”
-J Moss
Ask God to rebuild you.
At first I didn’t know where God was going with the title, “Rise and Fall”, but it was a Monday night while sitting in prophets class, long ago, that God revealed to me what He had to say. One area of rise and fall is our walk with the Lord and how it should be tied to our prayer life. I remember a time when I was young in the Lord and whenever I was faced with a challenge I had to pray about, I made it a rule that I wouldn’t get up without leaving it, the challenge, down. I had to feel a sense of peace. If I rose and felt any doubt, fear, or anxiety about what I prayed about I fell right back down on my knees. I had to let the enemy know that I made a choice to trust Christ. Since that time in my life I have often abandon that rule, gotten up off my knees and let life’s circumstances conqueror me. Thank God I have just recently turned back to this concept. It is often the basic things God gave us when we began our walk that helped us to be the Christians we are today. One thing I know, the enemy doesn’t want us to stay focused, he doesn’t want us to experience true peace, and he wants us to lose all hope because he knows if we do, we will stay in a fallen state. This fallen state is not a falling away from grace or sin but it is more so a plummet state, a state of limiting God. It’s this position, while praying, that often make us feel our prayers are not being answered which also leads to a feeling of downtroddeness, hurt, anger, or depressed. Luke 22:31-32 KJV And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Personalize this scripture with your own name. And the Lord said, Heidi, Heidi, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for you Heidi, that your faith fail not: and when you are converted, strengthen your brother. Jesus is saying outright that there will come a time when your faith will fail, but there is also a time when your heart and mind will be rehabilitated. At that time you will rise from your fall and when you do think about someone else to rehabilitate. The Word tells us we overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony. Just sharing with someone your life experience can set them free.
Ask God to rehabilitate you.
A friend shared her journal reading with me entitled Determined to be Happy. In it Joel Osteen wrote, “When it’s my time to go, I want to spend my last day here on this earth full of joy, full of faith, and full of victory. I’ve made up my mind; I’m going to live my best life now, and when my days are done, I’m going to die standing up on the inside.” He further states, “When you face adversity, remind yourself, I am full of God’s can-do power. I can overcome. I can live in victory. I can stand up on the inside. Learn to tap into the can-do power that God has placed inside you, rather than rolling over in the face of adversity.” This reading took me right to a familiar Psalm; Psalm 71. In it David spoke of trusting God and God delivering him from his adversary. David asked God to not leave him when he was old and give him the opportunity to share God’s power, in his old age, with that generation. But the verses I often quoted in one of the toughest seasons of my life was v.20-21 KJV, Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. Sound like a promise to me! No matter how much it seems like life and people kick you, know that God will quicken, make you alive again and raise you up to the place He had planned for you in the beginning. A liturgy that God gave me years ago was ‘I am destined for greatness because Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. It has nothing to do with me but all to do with Him, and that’s why I can say I AM DESTINED FOR GREATNESS’. I try to affirm this in my spirit daily. It takes affirmations like this, said on a daily basis, to make it. I have to ask God to give me His eyes, because if I look with my natural eye I will quickly tumble and fall, but when I truly focus on Him, my head stays up and my horizon is not my own. I don’t know about you but I need the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I need the God who spoke creation into being. The God who led our forefathers through water, deserts and enemies. I need that God today.
Ask God to reform you.
One Sunday I was afforded the opportunity to worship with another church. I asked God the night before to lead me to a place that I would truly get a Word from Him and He sent me to the right place. The preacher’s sermon was The Good Thing About Weakness. He referenced two scriptures: 2 Corinthians 13:4 and 2 Corinthians 12:9. In those scriptures the target word was weakness. He pointed out that weakness in these scriptures was not dealing with sin but our ability to limit God. He defined weakness in this scripture as inability and he explained how God wanted to use our weakness or inability for His glory. If we are willing to admit our weakness/inability, actually - come out of denial, then we open ourselves to be used by God. The preacher hammered in the statement that God is never limited by OUR limitations. God doesn’t always move through our strengths but often through our weaknesses. Another good note is that our weaknesses prevent us from being arrogant; it can be an instrument of humility. So if you are like me and you have some weakness, hold them out to God and let Him be your strength.
Finally, ask God to revive and renew you.
LIFE QUOTE
“Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it."
-Winston Churchill
Let Us Laugh!
What do you call a radio that just works in the morning? An AM radio.
Hope to see you Next Month....
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