The Day I Died...

The day I died…

I was praying a few weeks ago and God began to speak to me about a fish being caught on a hook, the flow of a river, and about a turtle crossing the road…

Fish:

He began to show me that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of fish in the water but that one fish is caught on the hook at just the right moment. This is how we are to be with fishing for men. He told the disciples that they would be fishers of men. He showed them how when they tried to get the fish on their own, in their own merit they failed. But when God told them to let down their net they had an overabundance and were filled to capacity. So the fisherman on the water gets that one fish at just that right moment, and it was his time to die. Jesus is leading each and every one of us to die at just the right moment. Everything is ordained of God and He knows just exactly when you are going to die. The first time you die, you die through the salvation process. This is the Death (Repentance), Burial (Baptism), and Resurrection (Holy Ghost) which is speaking in other tongues as the spirit gives the utterance. (Acts 2:4, Acts 2:38). When you died in salvation you died at just the moment God had ordained for you to die. If you haven’t experienced this kind of death then I encourage you to study the scriptures and see for yourself what I am telling you to be true. I would begin reading in the book of Acts because this is where the beginning of the church began after Jesus was resurrected on the cross.

Today, I am really talking about a different kind of death. I am talking about dying to self. We come to God we receive salvation but that really is only the very beginning of it all. We begin on a road a journey really and we have to learn to have a relationship with God for ourselves. We have to die to the old man and become a new creature in Him. This is a process and it happens slowly and steadily over time. The more we want of Him the more He will show us and then honestly the more He will require of us. He never takes something from us that He knows we are not ready to surrender. Every time you surrender to His calling and give up a part of yourself to Him, then the more you die a little more to your flesh.

We keep walking or flowing in the spirit until He leads us to our death….

The River:

God gave me a personal analogy of me flowing down a fast moving river. The push of the current was moving me forward and there was only one direction. In the river there were bumps and bruises along the way. I hit a tree stump, I hit some debris, and I bottomed out on the rocks. I was tossed to one side of the river and I even tried to grab onto a tree branch and hold on. Yet, I was still being pushed forward. One time I stood up and tried to walk backwards and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t go backwards. I tried and I fell and was still being pushed forward. I was wet, cold, and all alone but still the river has pushed me forward.

Then I went over the edge of the waterfall…

The day I died it hurt and I cried out to God, “Help me God!” And He did… He was at the bottom of the waterfall with His loving arms and He placed me in the river below. This new river is a gentle flow. It is not rough, it is not pushing, and I am not fighting against the current. Because this time I know I had to reach my death in order to flow freely in the river in the spirit. 

The river is our walk with God. We are flowing in the spirit when we are walking with Him. We often hit the rocks and we think we did something wrong even though we are flowing in the spirit and walking with the Lord, we forget how to trust Him, or we've never learned how to trust Him. The rocks and the trees are God’s way of trying to correct us back onto the flow of the river. He is teaching us to trust Him and that means we cannot hold onto the branch of the trees. Even if we try to keep holding on for as long as we can, the current is so strong it will rip us from the roots and keep moving us forward. We try to do it on our own so then we try and go back to what we once knew. We stand up in the river and move backwards and we stumble and we fall, instead of letting the river in the spirit wash away our past. So we walk in circles in the current, not moving forward and never making it to what was behind us.

All along the river He is speaking, “Trust me.” “Lean not to your own understanding.” “Ask for what you need.” “Seek me and you will find me.” “Knock and the door will be open.” He is a God of love and He will not force you to die to self. He might let you live in a whirlpool of your own making for a time but eventually you will die one way or another.

There are three ways you can die:

1)   A spiritual death where you walk away from God and never come back

2)   You can die willingly and submit to His will readily

3)   Or you can die at His hand (He forcefully takes it from you)

All three are choices that you choose for your life. You can choose to walk away and live a life without the spirit and nothing more will be required of you. You can die willingly and this is the best option because you choose straightway to set aside your past and the things of this world. Then there are the rest of us…

You pray the prayer, “not my will but thy will be done.” But you struggle and you fight the spirit because either you don’t understand it, or you are hard headed and think somehow you can live in two places. I am here to tell you, YOU CAN’T! Once you pray the prayer, “not my will.” You give up your rights and give over your free will to the Lord, and then that is when He orders your steps. I implore you to die the easy way!!! When the Lord causes you to die, well let’s just say it is not pleasant.

When I reached to the edge of a waterfall the current came crashing in and I couldn’t breathe. The force of the fall almost tore me in pieces but that my friends was the day I died…

There were parts of me that I thought had died but they hadn’t. I had hidden chains buried in my life as far back as my childhood. As I was falling I couldn’t see through the water to the other side and I was drowning. The Lord brought me to my death but really it was new life. It was the last of the onion peel of sin that had encamped round about me my whole life. I had to die to self, self-will, rebellion, hatefulness, lust, and all worldly desires. I thought I had given them up willingly but there were walls that were down and I was in the enemy’s camp. I was easy prey and had been deceived by an imaginary idea that wasn’t real in the least.

I would like to insert here at this point. You can be praying, fasting, and doing the Lord’s work and still fall prey to the enemy. The more you step out on faith then the more of a moving target you are for the enemy. I trusted the wrong people. I got too close to imaginary friends and it was used to my detriment. I am not making excuses, I am just saying that it matters who is in your life.  If your defenses are down and you trust too easily, you are prey for the enemy. If you are not praying the right prayers and even setting aside the feelings you feel in the spirit you will be sorry. Not everyone is your friend. Not everyone cares to help you. Not everyone sees the good you tried to do. I only admonish the most important thing in your life is who you let to influence your life.

God has used my pain and my failures to help others. He will use it the rest of my life. He used my pain to gut me to the very core of my being, and mostly to learn to never treat anyone how I have been treated. True love, loves someone whether they can ever love you back or if they will ever love you at all. It is caring for someone no matter how far they fall and be there with a hand to lift them out of the mire. I learned this lesson from someone who changed my life. Then God showed me what it really means to be loved when no one else loves you, when they have all turned their back on you. The ultimate love is from Jesus who is our Father. He died for my sins, failures, pains, and broken hearts.

I found myself back on the threshing floor and God met me like He has never met me before in my life. He unraveled the unspoken parts of my life I didn’t even know existed. So as I am not glad that I failed God, I am glad He finally was able to show me the holes in my armor. This was the day I died. I was the fish on the hook and at the exact moment ordained of God, He changed me and transformed me once more for His glory.

Turtle:

God knows when the turtle crosses the road. He knows where the ants store up food. When the bird will soar in the sky and just when His promises will come to pass. If God knows the exact moment things are to happen for animals and bugs, how much more does He know and order our steps? This is something God has been teaching me in the lesson. He has been teaching me to trust and know that if He says it will happen, that means it has already happened. He is a God who lives in the future, our future! He lives beyond the present and takes our past and uses it for His glory.

This has been hard for me to understand. I have stepped out in faith and then I got waylaid. I have doubted that what I had heard from God was really from God. I know we have all been there. I would like to say at this point that the devil is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. His tricks are all the same. He uses the same ploys over and over. “If it hasn’t happened by now, then it will never happen.” “You aren’t good enough.” “You have failed too much for God to use you.” “No one likes you.” “No one wants to hear what you have to say.” “You’re not worth the effort.” “You will never do what God has told you.” These ARE ALL LIES!!!! He uses them most effectively when we are weak, discouraged, and forlorn but they are still lies.

I asked the Lord once, “Lord, I have failed you so much, how could you love me? How could you use me when I have failed you so much?” He answered, “But I saw your love in the future and I carried you to this point. You will use your testimony to give me glory. You will speak life to the broken, and you will lead them to the cross.” Needless to say I was overcome by so much love. If Jesus the God of all creation who died for my salvation could forgive me and use me, then how much more am I to love and forgive? I don’t care who you are, what you have done, or where you have been, you have a place in the Kingdom. You have a place as my friend. I will pray for you, love you, and help you to the cross.

 "Does God really have His hand on me?" 

So in answer to the age old question, If God has his hand on the turtle, then He has His hand on your life too…

Conclusion:

I pray that this blog blessed you somehow. I pray that you too can die to self and that you die willingly…

You are a fish that is being kept until just the moment when God will change you. He is leading you down a river and teaching you to trust Him when all things seem impossible. You are more important than a turtle. He cares for the turtle crossing the road and the birds in the air; but He cares more about you in your journey. He is ordering your steps. He knows where you are and He will never leave you or forsake you! Trust HIM! Don’t let the lies of the enemy destroy you! Don’t let your past dictate your future! Remember to forgive along the journey and be willing to welcome those home who have fallen by the wayside. If you have been forgiven then you too must forgive! The ultimate story of love and forgiveness is Jesus our Master, Savior, Redeemer, and Healer… Share your own story of love and let’s lead as many people to the cross and back to the cross as possible…You have the power to change lives for the good and the bad. What is your choice?