By Zethu Zwane
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For an entire year even after the holy spirit told me what I went through, I was terrified of God. I had these feelings of the Holy Spirit, but pushed them away. Then one night I just burst out crying because the spirit would not leave me alone. I mean I tried listening to several sermons, but would end up crying because the fear of “trying Jesus,” was so painful.”
That’s when my Pastor said; “If you’re scared of praying the devil has won. The trap set for you was successful because now you’re guilty everytime you think about God. You need God,” but how do you come to a Father who terrifies you? We all need growth, and sometimes God allows you to practise the authority to choose Him even if the journey is rocky and scary.
I cannot speak for other painful experiences like the spouse who got cancer, but I can speak for the person who’s once feared God because they couldn’t tell the difference between God’s voice and the lies of the devil. If you’d only for a moment lay your desperation, anxieties, fears of loneliness to the heels of God you may be able to see the difference between God voice and feel His love. More important is reading the Bible. Read it till the word speaks to you even more than the lies of the enemy.
I believe many Christians are living a pacifist lives where pastors govern over your lives more than God does. Too many Christians are running to the pastor first, but isn’t that odd. Imagine you have siblings and instead of having father time with your dad, you tell you brother to go instead. Which child gives up the love of a purely loving father? Yes some of you have faced abusive fathers, but here I’m talking about the world’s most loving father.
Imagine for a moment experiencing the most safe love unimaginable, but you expect someone to experience it for you. This is what some Christians are being taught today. To rest on the authority of the pastor and not God. They say I’d have to ask my pastor as opposed to saying I’ll need to pray first. Yes pastors are good, yes Instagram posts are okay, but a personal relationship with Jesus does not compare. You can experience beyond the best when you have a relationship with God.
Again God gives us complete authority over our lives, so we can take on a journey to fully knowing Him. He gives you authority, so you’re most happy when choosing God. For the most part, you wouldn’t marry anyone without knowing them. God knows He can only get our full commitment, with the release of these gains. That week I said no praying just read the Bible. This is why I only learned why I love God now and not when I was baptised. Baptism was choosing Him, but Him saving me has shown me why I love Him.
Reading the Bible helped me learn Yahweh’s Character and His promises. Literally reading from Genesis all the way to Kings alone is all you need! It shows how God created us to have authority. I don’t like to say co creators because that’s what affirmations say. It misleads you into believing you’ve got power to mold yourself. On the other hand I will not allow the devil to win by shying away from the word.
So yes we are co creators who work UNDER a saviour and King. I liked it when Pastor T D Jakes says God created the trees, but we created the chairs and tables. There’s still room to celebrate areas where you have full control, while understanding why you still need a saviour and Jehovah Rapha.
Affirmations suggest you’re at the same hierarchy as Aleph whereas you’re more like God’s clay. Yes God created you and He will mold you continuously till you’re purified like gold. In everything in life there is order just like a family where ideally the father is the head of the family. Similarly in this God-led kingdom, you will see how one small task adds to the value of His kingdom.
ALEPH sees actions from a generational plan, so I feel like maybe the start of revisiting who is God means reading about His character and your purpose in life. Also I believe don’t read God’s promises alone. Read the chapters, so you can see there were other mistaken people like you and me who decided to do things alone only to get hurt. Please don’t read the verses alone. I love doing it too, but Isiah had me tripping, only to remember this is a response to all the times people abandoned God for false practices.
God came to show us there is more to these things. Maybe the reason people want to fill up their day with distractions is because it prevents them from dealing with unexplainable disappointments. God won’t necessarily give you the answers to these pasts hurts, but through Him will you find the place you’ve been searching for. Only Jesus Christ can offer you an unimaginable peace when you choose Him, and it begins with knowing the ways of His Kingdom.
Furthermore God sees more to life than houses, cars or even marriage. He has an eternal plan that has been weaved throughout the ages and is still working today. As a result there were several moments where I read in the Bible where people start out perfect in God’s eyes like Solomon, but end up failing due to mixing so many spiritual practices. In fact 3,000 people are named in the Bible, but more than half fall short. This explains the complexity of human life, and should give you reassurance that God knows what you’ll face in life.
More important, Solomon married women from several different cultures. Please highlights this moment and connect to my example where I go singing in the middle of Oklahoma city in just a string. Is it really easier to tell people we don’t do this here, but Christians are constantly upgrading to new practices? Let me say this again, a police officer will definitely put me in jail for indecency, but Christians are willing to say Biblical affirmations even it slightly compromises our faith?
More so, Solomon started pure in God’s eyes. God favoured him and loved him. Solomon even built the most magnificent building for God, but falling into false practices ruined Solomon. I also love how the Bible says he married into those several cultures because that’s exactly what we do every day. We mix with people all the time, but never be so accommodating that you become more like the world than Christ-centred.
This is an exceptional moment because we’re an ever increasing global culture. Without knowing it, it feels like we’re growing small globally. Cuktural and religious influences are mixing every day, which means biblical truths can easily get lost in translations when all these exposures continue to grow.
Some might say why am I so focused on the semantics, but this time I believe we need to discuss the semantics of affirmations versus declarations. Revelations versus affirmations; why are these difference crucial to separating us from psychics and fortune tellers? Remember psychics use the phrase; “this is a sign,” and tell you that you can predict your future.
You’ll be surprised that as someone who grew up in an Anglican house, I’d end up chasing after it all, but I feel like Affirmations want to blurr semantics until there no difference between tarot cards and Bible readings. The deceiving removes that this is EXACTLY The same as reading tarot cards more than it is about sitting next to a baboon. Maybe the more advanced we get leads to a more unclear space where even false practices convincingly linger between words.
Was it a sign or a reading? maybe it’s easier to digest that this is a sign from biblical affirmations than the acknowledgment it as a sign from tarot cards. What do you think about that moment? What is better because it seems to me that we’re being lied to like Solomon. We’ve been sold a lie that we can come to the feet of Yahweh while keeping a book of predictions on your future house, car or business.
Then again what is the difference between revelations and manifestations. All these moments bring up questions because I wanted to know what are vision boards. Is it another case of predicting our future? Where is relying on God in all these diluted practices? It doesn’t strengthen prayer, it defies it. It strips you of the ability to keep faithful in the dark where they’re no signs and wonders.
Reread Jeremiah and you will see that obsessing over your future and mixing predictions with prayer angers God because it suggests you are equal to the Potter. Another thing that stood out to me reading the NLT version is from Genesis whenever people sin like Lots daughters who slept with their father, God’s intervention is simply speaking back His promises.
That’s because at the moment we’re seeing a broken world. Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiast teaches you how to reposnd to this brokenness. Have you ever sinned like 5 years ago and it only makes sense now. That’s me and affirmations.
God didn’t punish me for the affirmations. He allowed my self will to choose the outcomes. Anyway when Lots daughters slept with the father, He called it a sin. Nothing was even said about Moses killing someone. Actually we forget that part of the story, because there is a greater part that God wanted to achieve His plan. What’s ironic is and I’m joking here but someone scratched out the part documenting Moses guilt and shame for killing the person. Only joking of course. Yet the most repeated moments are this:
- God gives Moses an assignment that Pharoah will free His people.
- Moses is scared and feels unworthy.
- God makes Pharaoh stubborn because Alpha knows Moses struggles with a lack of self worth.
- Moses comes back, God send him out again, and as the Alpha God knowingly sends Moses out knowing the Pharaoh is stubborn.
- Moses gets tired with self doubt, but God keeps sending Him out
Have you ever heard that maybe in part Moses had to do that tango to grow because Jesus knew He needed to purify Moses from feelings of self doubt? God had to purify Him of his fears. It also highlights that alone, you’ll be consumed with these moments, but with God, you always have a breakthrough.
Your path is straight and protected under God’s authority. Reading the old Testimony made me realize that trying the world alone will lead us into false teachings and pain. Yet with God, you have assurance that all things will work for His goodness. It reminds me of the saying you can plan all you want, but when God will have the final say. Maybe those days had a purpose.
If God didn’t make Pharaoh stubborn, do you think Moses would have released his fears of not belonging? Do you think Moses would have gotten over His feelings of abandonment? Remember his mother had to leave him to be raised by another person of a completely different culture. Yet those dualistic backgrounds allowed him to work with the Egyptians and Israelites to achieve God’s purpose.
That is why I wholeheartedly believe affirmations rob you of these precious moments. How do you appreciate the power of lamenting if you allow ideas that fake positive is real. How do you experience deep and personal levels of God if you believe you won life alone. That you have the same power as God to bring into existence what only God will. What I liked about Moses was that God knew fake everything was about to come because God had Pharaoh compete with Moses.
At some point the Pharaoh’s people were doing the same miracles as Yahweh. Don’t you believe that God did this so you can see first hand just how sensitive His voice is. From the very beginning Yahweh knew Moses would face so many wanna bes. That several people would come doing exactly what God did. Yet He did it to grow patience in Moses. On another note, while sitting across screaming dates, I learned I’m coveting love and marriage.
That painful yearning, takes me away from the sight of God. It makes me focus on this ideal man or thing in a marriage only God can be. Maybe we have to read how the Isrealites struggle with such a petty thin because that’s exactly what we do. We want the marriage but not the emotional and spiritual growth. I want the husband, so long as he doesn’t tell me what to do. We want the business, so long as it doesn’t fail. We wnat the friendships so long as they don’t argue with me. What do they say; This weekend was all about me, stop crying.
We pull a Abraham. Now this one I only caught after I pulled an Anraham. Abraham has this beautiful wife, an I’m not sure f you caught, bt everywhere he went, he would always give away his wife. Then God would send a plague so the people would return her. In those moments isn’t it fair to say that we all have something in us that only God can heal.
Next stage was Moses. In the next stage that’s when he hear God deliberately makes someone stubborn to fulfill a destiny. Destinies don’t have to start great. Stop believing God can’t use you just because you were an orphan. Don’t believe that God won’t use you just because you were abandoned by people.
Your debate with Gid may be that you’ve been hurt by so many people, so why is He wasting His time with a fragile person like you Stacy over there is a great speaker? But why NOT YOU. Maybe through you Jesu WILL complete the generational plan, because He knows your willingness to see your brokenness even through the growth opportunities.
We all have to grow through Growth opportunities in life and I believe learning the voice of God is the most precious growth opportunity out there. That is why I had to go through that idol worship crap. I had tonlearn first hand that the devil can do what God does, but not at God’s timing. You see what I never told you is I had given up on love. Watching all my friends go through breakups was terrifying. I was like Nope, I’ve been hurt by people before, so why would you go here.
That was until God reminded me my love for family. Yet just be sure you’re reminded of something doesn’t mean it needs to happen now. You see so many of us better revelations even 12 years before the fact. The waiting is painful. Maybe for Moses the waiting was tiresome becaue confronting your self doubt and insecurities can be exhausting.
Then when you finally get the break through there’s this whole desert thing? I mean what is up with that! that’s exactly where quick fixes steal from you. They say have the break through without eating bread and walking through a desert in Exodus.
False practices like affirmations is some thing God detests for those reasons. A lot of those verses say God detests these practices. I believe it speaks to the magnitude of false practices. They steal from you so much more than broken promises; they steal you away from God.
To a certain degree witnessing peoples failures, insecurities, murders, and stealing points to this character that alone we’re not perfect. We’re sometimes chaotic. We’re sometimes selfish, and we’re sometimes self centered. We’re a lot of things without God because we have no way of seeing what leads us? Am I truly healed or did some quick fix quote give me false hope.
Why was I rejected? Why was I abandoned. Without God your broken beliefs will have you lying to yourself believing you have overcome the worst and made it. Yes that is true, but emotionally have you truly overcome it? Because believing people are evil is not healing. Believing men are cheaters in not healing. Believing corruption is normal is not healing.
Consequently God is the only one who can speak to the vulnerabilities of our hearts more than we can. I couldn’t see the complete picture at the time because I had no future self to show me how I would fear forgiveness. I used to run away from intense people not knowing I was running away from being attacked again.
Yet with God, He is the only one who can take you through those dark spaces without turning on you when you try hard enough. He is the only one who can say ” You went seeking affirmations because you still haven’t gotten over feelings of abandonment, but you’re now reaching for a quick fixes.”
The issue with deep engraved pains is we go seeking things to comfort us. The fear of lack whether it be growing up in a poor home or growing up in war may lead people to seek signs. Even if these signs are misleading and in a space where poverty, terror is a constant norm are we not planting seeds of fear more and more every day In?
I did my university thesis on memorable messages, and watched how people cried at the pains of war. These people were babies at the time of the war, but the message from their parents and elders was so powerful that the anger lives in the youth.
We’re surrounded by powerful messages every day. We’re constantly merging between cultural beliefs and turning to Jesus. Consequently I believe it’s always going to be difficult to cut through the noise of the world and Yahweh. It’s always going to difficult to cut through false practices and God.
That’s if you’re not reading the Bible. And asking God to open your eyes. I believe we need a weekly check in with Jesus beyond Sundays. Having that personal time with Him will help you start seeing the Bible as living. Allow the Bible to speak to you. Jot down what is revealed to you and pray on it.
This is will remove the dangerous line between idol worship and hearig God.We want to mix God and these idols without suffering the consequences. God had to let me blurr the lines. He had to allow me to go through the shock of lies, so I can experience firsthand hand the lies of te enemy.
Can I tell you I knew 4 months into rejecting and fearfully God that I had to go through this, so I could save someone else. There is someone right now traveling 17,000miles to somewhere due to signs.
There is someone 4 hours away from me marrying someone due to signs. There is someone 3 continents away from me accepting a job due to signs. However when you begin to pick up your Bible and read it for more than 15 minuets per day, you can gain something. Your relationship with a friend can’t last only 15 minutes.
We all have had that one friend we spend 4 hours with;your relationship needs to take on that deliberate change, so you can begin to see God working in you. It’s okay when God shows you’re idolize for your marriage, friends, career or house, but don’t just stay there or hide. Come to Him. Thank Him for the revelation and apologize for loosing sight of what’s more important. Lastly keep working on betting your relationship with Him.
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