My Word is Not a Formula
Baby Girl,
I LOVE your heart! It’s in the right place. Please take this reproach as gently and earnestly as you can.
Reproach = address someone in such a way as to express disapproval or disappointment
Earnestly = with sincere and intense conviction; seriously
Conviction = a firmly held belief or opinion
I can tell by your tears that I have your attention but your stomach is twisting in fearful anticipation of what we will be talking about - and that is not My desire. We need to address these tears before I bring My reproach.
My voice is not raised with you. I am coming to you with lovingkindness in My tone. You are not in trouble and you have nothing to repent of. As a child, you feared these conversations with people in places of authority, not because there was something you needed to learn, but for fear of punishment. Look up the difference between punishment and correction.
Punishment = the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense; rough treatment or handling inflicted on or suffered by a person or thing
Correction = the action or process of correcting something; a change that rectifies an error or inaccuracy
Can you hear the difference in those two words? Baby, as your Daddy, I do not enter these conversations to punish you but to correct your thinking. Your heart longs to honor Me with your life. These conversations are just to clarify what a life that honors Me looks like - not to condemn you for where you have missed the mark.
I’m smiling because, when I said that, you immediately heard in your spirit John 3:17: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved,” and immediately searched your mind for the Greek word you discovered is used for the word sin: it’s “hata” in Hebrew and “hamartia” in Greek meaning, “missing the mark.”
That sounds a lot less offensive than what you’ve come to understand the word “sin” to mean. doesn’t it? And there you go again. Immediately, you translated when I said “less offensive” to mean “less likely to be a stumbling block.” Can you see how these chats are changing your thinking?
This process of spending this time with Me, being curious about what I mean by what I say, and assuming the best of My intentions is renewing your mind and, day by day you are thinking more and more like I do. Your will is bending and conforming to Mine.
Conforming = complying with rules, standards, or laws
You’ve been learning that the fear of the Lord is friendship with God. Look at the sermon notes you took yesterday and remind Me what you heard.
“When you are a friend of God you speak honestly and you welcome His honesty because His honesty is always for your benefit.
The fruit of maturity is that you DESIRE God’s discipline and redirection. The fruit of maturity is desiring to know the heart of God and, more than that, desiring to fulfill the will of God’s heart.
The fear of the Lord, when you are an obedient child, is the safest place in life. You WANT to know that He is always watching. There is safety in His loving, watchful eye. You desire Him to watch every step and to correct your steps as you go, KNOWING that He will NEVER lead you into a ditch.
I do EVERYTHING differently when I am mindful that He is there, He is watching, He’s the friend who will never leave me, and He loves me. I do everything differently out of the beautiful LOVE and reverential fear of the Lord.
He creates boundary lines and reinforces them with us until we are mature enough to trust His heart in creating those boundaries and until we maintain them from a place of wisdom rather than just obedience.”
I LOVE how she stated that last little bit! Right now, your mind is being conformed to My will, and that is requiring a LOT of redirection. You have gone your own way assuming My will your whole life.
You’re mentally watching your seventh-grade science teacher’s arm flying wildly across the blackboard as he wrote big bold letters in chalk, “ASS-U-ME,” and gruffly said, “Assuming makes an ass out of you and me! In this class, you are to never assume. If you have a question, ask!”
Isn’t it amazing how pivotal some moments in life are? How they etch words into your conscience forever?
You’re thinking right now of several pivotal phrases you’ve picked up in our conversations.
“If you ever think, feel, sense, or say the words ‘I know I should, but…’ or ‘I know I shouldn’t, but…’ But means the enemy is about to make a suggestion, and what follows can rightly be replaced with, ‘I am choosing to live in willful disobedience to the leading of Holy Spirit in my life.’”
“The enemy didn’t create the game so he could win. He created the game so it would never end.“
“Wash their dirty little feet.”
“Don’t sit down.”
“Any thought that disagrees with who I am should be corrected.”
“Don’t refer to Christians as ‘believers’ - even demons believe and shudder.”
“The Christian faith is not a recipe but a cookbook where Jesus crucified, risen, and seated at the right hand of the Father is the main ingredient in every recipe.”
“We are entering into a season of radical obedience. That means keeping your soul out of our business.”
“Emotions are lights on a dashboard.”
“You being you loving Me is worship. Me being Me loving you is grace.”
“Be careful what you ask for. If you sincerely want the eyes of Elisha, I will give you what you ask for but, once I open your eyes, they will be open, and you can’t turn back.”
“Giving, no matter what time of year, should never be done as a reflex to external stimulus.”
“‘Doors-are-open‘ faith is full of dead works.”
“Do you trust Me?”
“I don’t want you to appear unoffendable - I want you to BE unoffendable.”
“You will NOT lead anyone into success. You have proven that you alone are incapable of leading even yourself into success. DO NOT think yourself an expert. You do NOT have anyone else’s answers. They have them and they have them in the same measure you do. All. You have ALL the answers you’ll ever need for your life and so do they.”
Let’s stop there. I think you could go all night with this game. That last one is a good introduction to what I wanted to talk to you about.
In your zeal, your perspective on healing has become offensive.
Zeal = great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective
And there are those tears. Little One, you just want others to experience the wholeness you’re experiencing so badly that you’re turning the reality of divine healing into a solvable, Biblical, mathematical equation - it’s not that simple.
Your perspective on My heart and My will is right. I LOVE people and My heart is for them. My will is for their healing and wholeness but the way you have worked out the problem to get to the correct answer is incorrect.
Do you remember how frustrated you were in math class when it stopped being about what was the right answer and started being about proving you knew how to get to that correct answer? You didn’t understand why the PROCESS of getting to that answer mattered.
Your teacher was trying to prepare you for higher levels of math where you would be incapable of getting to the answer without using that process to get to it. You were being trained on simple problems your brain was capable of solving without the process simply to get the process of getting to the answer ingrained.
You decided you didn’t want to get to the higher levels of math because you were frustrated by the concept of the process being imperative. You just wanted to give the answer and move on to the next question.
You’re doing that with the concept of healing.
Not only are you sharing this concept in a way that could trip others up in their faith but you are also creating an atmosphere of doubt in your own mind - especially when it comes to people like your mom who you know loves and trusts Me and yet is riddled with disease.
Stop twisting My Word to solve for complex situations you don’t have understanding to apply. Healing is so easy for Me and I sent My Son to provide it; however, not everyone is ready to receive it and your equations are missing the most important element, which is My divine timing.
Stay in My Word long enough to understand My heart. When you truly know My heart for My people, the process each person goes through to win victory in their lives will be of less concern to you. Surrender to the unknown and the unknowable.
We will come back to this later. I think that’s enough for now.
I LOVE you.
Don’t allow this conversation to cause you to shrink back from sharing Scripture as you understand it.
Share it freely but never as a formula.
Sweet dreams,
Daddy
Galatians 3:2-3
