This very special WWG1WGA SUNDAY
open thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody
to post whatever they feel they would like
to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA world.

Say what you want, comment on what other people said,
comment on people’s comments.
Keep it civil.  Treehouse rules, but expect lots of QAnon.

See the January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road,
which are few but important.

Remember – your greatest gift to President Trump is FIVE WORDS:
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU

Overcoming Offendedness

The following article is part of a larger series by Rick Joyner intended to help people prepare for the battles right on our horizon. I highly recommend prayerfully going over the entire set of articles as time permits.

“A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city.”
(Proverbs 18:19a)

The Great Commission was to make disciples of all nations, not just individuals. The Lord said that when He returned He would divide the nations into “sheep” or “goats.” The sheep are good and the goats are bad. We have come to a time when nations are determining ultimate issues that will result in them being a sheep or goat nation.

In this series, I will continue to unpack the dramatic dream I had about the American Republic that deals with ultimate issues of our purpose from heaven’s perspective. Regardless of what country you are from, there will be a level of civil conflict coming in your nation too. Many will be similar to what is unfolding here.

Therefore, even though this is American-centric, in many ways it addresses the same basic issues all nations will be facing, as these are all connected to what The Lord said would come at the end of this age.

As covered previously, the first two Great Awakenings in America each preceded wars, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. As we study the primary messages that came from those two Great Awakenings, we can see a direct link from the Awakenings to the wars.
So did these great spiritual awakenings cause the wars? In some basic ways they did. The light from these Awakenings exposed the darkness, and this required that it be confronted until it was driven from the land.
Could the darkness have been driven from the land by spiritual warfare so that the physical conflicts would not have been necessary? Perhaps. That certainly would have been desirable.
However, what I saw in my dream included physical conflict. I saw the nature of this, which I will share later in this study. Even so, it is my conviction that to the degree that evil strongholds in our land are destroyed spiritually, the degree of the physical conflict will lessen.
As we enter the Third Great Awakening in America, we can expect the same kind of light to expose the great darkness in our time. When powers of darkness are exposed, they rage. When they are cast out of their high positions they come to the earth with great wrath, as we see in Revelation 12.
God’s provision is to send us great champions of the truth to face specific evil strongholds in our time. They are being sent to completely destroy these strongholds, not just defeat them and push them back. What is happening in the Spirit will be reflected in the natural with rage and conflict.
It is always a tragedy when our differences degenerate into violence. It has been a great hope of Western Civilization to rise above war, to eradicate it completely from the earth. That is a noble hope, however, as we see up to the end of the Book of Revelation, there will be increasing war right to the end of the age.
As we see in Revelation 7, for a brief time the winds of war (winds of the earth) are held back so that The Lord’s bondservants can be sealed, but this is a short time and the winds are released again.
To be prepared for the times we must understand that violence has already begun, and it will get worse for a time. Again, this may be reduced by spiritual victories, but there is now a level of violence that we will not be able to avoid and we must be prepared for—spiritually and physically.
A major reason we can expect increasing violence is because of a contingent that not only does not want open debate, but cannot tolerate it. This is the fruit of an education system that no longer educates, but rather indoctrinates.
A generation has been conditioned so that if you disagree with them they will be offended, and being offended has been elevated to the level of being considered almost worse than a physical assault.
That many are so easily offended is a major cause that will make the physical violence unavoidable. As we are told in Proverbs 18:19, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city.”
One of the most important things we can do to prepare for the coming conflict is to refuse to be offended. This is basic Christianity and is called “forgiveness.” Jesus forgave the ones who had Him crucified and even those who nailed Him to the cross. Learning to be quick to forgive is basic discipleship and basic to following Christ.
To stay on the right side in what is unfolding, we must not engage in the rage and bitterness that is fueled by unforgiveness. We must learn not to react to personal offense, but take the actions that we do because they are the right thing to do.
To make it through what is coming upon the world will require all Christians to follow Christ more closely and be more like Him than we ever have. We must guard our hearts, especially from the evil stronghold of unforgiveness and offense.
The Lord will help us get ready by allowing opportunities to learn to forgive quickly and totally. Don’t waste these trials. Embrace them as the opportunities they are, especially when you are persecuted for doing what is right.
The Lord promised a special blessing for this. See these as an opportunity to get closer to The Lord by bearing your cross to identify with Him, and getting closer to Him will be the greatest blessing of all.

 ^“One of the most important things
we can do to prepare for the coming conflict
is to refuse to be offended. “

—Rick Joyner

We are in a battle for the ages.
Our lives, our families, our communities, our nation need us to win this.
Living in offense is like keeping your eyes on the rear view mirror.
Fixating on the rear view mirror is a distraction we cannot afford to entertain.
Let’s clear our vision so we can maximize our battle readiness!
Think*3

Remember – your greatest gift to President Trump is FIVE WORDS:
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU

This very special OH-MY-GOODNESS SUNDAY
open thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody
to post whatever they feel they would like
to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA world.

Say what you want, comment on what other people said,
comment on people’s comments.
Keep it civil.  Treehouse rules, but expect lots of QAnon.

See the January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road,
which are few but important.

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering,
not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
(Romans 2:4)

Have you ever thought about how long God’s goodness has been hunting you down, cutting off all your avenues of escape, relentlessly hounding you until you finally surrender to it?
God is that committed to blessing you. And that should be good news.
You may remember a time when circumstances were particularly grim, when you felt like there was no escape, you were going to be crushed. But God somehow, someway, was with you, holding your heart so tenderly you barely could feel His touch, but you lived to see another day. And you knew it was the goodness of God.
Maybe you have sensed His goodness in a very deep way when you held a newborn baby in your arms for the first time.
Or perhaps you have never really sensed His goodness, but you still choose to trust in it by His grace.
It’s easy to fall out of the practice of remembering the goodness of God. But you really can never get too much of His goodness, right?
Psalm 23 is one of the most beloved chapters of the Bible. “Surely Goodness and Mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” Who doesn’t want that?
In fact, Jesus reminds us that our Heavenly Father shares His goodness with the undeserving as well as those who do well in His sight. And He calls us to do the same.

 ^“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.
For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and
he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”
(Matthew 5:44-45)

Let’s pull on Heaven together for more of His goodness.
The world around us certainly needs it.
Think*3

Remember – your greatest gift to President Trump is FIVE WORDS:
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU

This very special ASH WEDNESDAY
open thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody
to post whatever they feel they would like
to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA world.

Say what you want, comment on people’s comments,
comment on content from elsewhere.

Keep it civil.  Treehouse rules, but expect lots of QAnon.

See the January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road,
which are few but important.

credits: Christianity.com

Then the Lord God formed the man
out of the dust of the ground
and blew into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

What Is Ash Wednesday?
& Why Do Christians Celebrate It?

Each year, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and is always 46 days before Easter Sunday. Lent is a 40-day season (not counting Sundays) marked by repentance, fasting, reflection, and ultimately celebration. The 40-day period represents Christ’s time of temptation in the wilderness, where he fasted and where Satan tempted him. Lent asks believers to set aside a time each year for similar fasting, marking an intentional season of focus on Christ’s life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection.

Catholic, Orthodox and many (but not all) Protestants appreciate and observe Lent. Though Lent is not named or observed in the Bible, as Christianity Today notes, “the path of Lent—prayer, fasting, and generosity over a period of time—is heavily emphasized by the authors of and characters in the Bible, including Jesus. The Bible commends a lifestyle of worship and devotion that looks considerably like Lent. Therefore, while the word is absent in the Bible, the reality of Lent is woven throughout the whole of Scripture, as we have discovered.”

In his Gospel Coalition article Evangelicals Embracing (and Rejecting) Lent, Trevin Wax gives us an important reminder regardless of whether we personally observe Lent:

“I hardly think the church is suffering from too much fasting,” Wax says. “But I do think the church is suffering from too much self-righteousness (and I include myself in this indictment). Lent – being either for or against – can become a way of climbing up on to the pedestal.”

He goes on to say, “What is more important than the practices we take on is the heart attitude behind them. If there’s anything we should give up this time of year, it’s our sense of superiority either to those outside the church or those inside the church who do things differently than we do.”

For dust you are and
to dust you will return.

— Genesis 3:19b

A Prayer for Ash Wednesday:

Lord, Holy One, have mercy on us. We confess our sins to you. We have fallen short of your glory and without your mercy and grace, we would be dust. We repent now. Lord, as we enter into this Lenten season, be near to us. Help us, by your Holy Spirit, to feel right conviction and repentance for our sin. Help us, by your Spirit, to have the strength to overcome the enemy.

Thank you, Lord, that Easter is coming! Death has no sting, no victory, because of Jesus! Glory and honor and praise to His name! Thank you for rescuing us. Help us keep both the weight and the joy of this season in our hearts and we move through the next several weeks. Help us bear the good fruit of your Spirit.

Thank you that the ashes on our forehead do not symbolize our ultimate reality. From dust we might have been formed, but our bodies, our spirits, ourselves, await beautiful redemption and the restoration of all things. Help us long and look forward to that day, and let it come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Sprinkle me with the cleansing blood and I shall be clean again.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
And after you have punished me, give me back my joy again.
Don’t keep looking at my sins—erase them from your sight.

Create in me a new, clean heart, O God,
filled with clean thoughts and right desires.

Psalm 51:7- 10

I believe this is true for many of us — we feel it is an immense honor to join together in fellowship with every single one of the lionhearted warriors that frequent here.

We are all in this together.
Our expressions of faith are poly variegated.
Which suits us perfectly.

Our unity is based on liberty, not conformity.
And nothing thrown at us has the power to divide us.

#WWG1WGA
Think*3

Remember – your greatest gift to President Trump is FIVE WORDS:
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU

This very intense SWEET JESUS SUNDAY
open thread is VERY OPEN – a place for everybody
to post whatever they feel they would like
to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA world.

Say what you want, comment on what other people said,
comment on people’s comments.
Keep it civil.  Treehouse rules, but expect lots of QAnon.

See the January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road,
which are few but important.

No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

(John 15:13)

Many years ago I had a fire lit in my bones for prayer and fasting by the teaching of a man named Lou Engle. Back then, he became a signpost in my life to not be content with anything less than a lifetime of seeking to follow Jesus Christ in fasting and prayer.
He is yet again leading a call to believers to join him in fasting and prayer.

Even if I’m not called to radical fasting at this time, I am honored to participate by adding my prayers in support of this worldwide effort.

If you feel a tug to join in some way, here are some resources for praying & fasting.
If the subject doesn’t resonate with you, no problem. Intensity like this is not for everyone or for every season.
Be free to be you.
Think*3

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.

(Song of Songs 8:6-7)