Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 5/12/2010
You are a celebrity simply because you are white
You don't get picky about the pronunciation of your name anymore, as long as it is in the same ballpark, that is good enough!
You respond to Mzungu just as if it was your real name
"MzunguhowareyyouI'mfine" is one word, and often the only English the speaker knows
"Yes, I am fine" is a normal response to, "hello"
You put your life into the hands of a piki-piki driver...and pray that you live
Worms, Malaria, amoebas, and typhoid are a common as a cold while chicken pox is a deadly disease
Hot tea is good in any weather
You consider yourself clean after bathing in lake water
Walking 2km to the doctor while sick is normal and expected
Rats and roaches..no big deal
You no longer get excited when you see monkeys...in fact, they can be rather obnoxious
You are asked to be in the weddings (and funerals) of people you've never met before
30+ people fit in a car
You ride on top of the Land Rover when there isn't room inside...and hope that you live
Deadly diseases and bodily function are normal conversation
You know the price you pay has a "skin tax" attached
You are asked daily if you know Obama, are related, or daily visit them and go on their family vacations...I'm his niece
When peeing in a bush is the safest decision you've made all day...way more sanitary than the toilet
Guarded escort at night is necessary to avoid hippo attacks
You shave in a bucket on the porch....that is if you shave at all
Two showers/hair washings a week seems excessive
Chocolate is a delicacy
A toilet you can poop in (and don't have to squat over a hole) is a luxury
A mosquito net protects you from anything and everything...it is your safety bubble
Electricity, when you have it it is a luxury and you often forget to use it and find yourself sitting idiotically in the dark...not having electricity is much more common
A traffic jam consists of a herd of cows blocking the road
Seeing a clean, stinkless squatty is pretty close to a miracle
Getting peed on by a baby is a weekly experience...you change clothes and move on
You get out of the shower and an hour later you still are covered in dirt
Everyone you see, young or old, greet you with a smile
Children fight to be the one to hold your hand
Some of the most gorgeous children you've ever seen run and greet you everyday
You start adding extra syllables to words...example Wellacome, helllathy, clothesas, etc.
You continually contemplate the question of rather you exist or not
Washing machine....revolutionary
You use buckets of water to use a non-functioning toilet
Food just becomes food...3 food options, INSANE!!!
When someone offers to iron your clothes you look at them dumbfounded
You start interjecting "Amen" and "Praise God" into normal conversation when all it really requires is a yes...or maybe...silence? NO WAY
People apologize when you break their things....still bewildered by it
Cardboard boxes are your drawers, personal storage, and keepsake area...DON'T TOUCH!!
70 degrees is considered freezing weather. No joke!
You need a rain jacket...INSIDE the bus
You say "Eh" when you really mean "No way"
Showing kneecaps...Scandal!!!
Baking soda is used to exfoliate your face
Boiling water for a shower...why bother
Putting on the same clothes you sweated in yesterday
You respond to hello with a "Yes, thank you"...don't ask why
To put it in short, you do things that seem completely strange and gross to you at home, but it is perfectly common and sanitary here. Really, it has begun to seem so normal that it was really, really hard to even come up with this list. It gives us a lot of laughs and if you do any of these things in your day to day life you may just be....a missionary in Africa!
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 5/12/2010
As we are winding up our stay here in Africa and packing for the plane ride we will be catching in the next couple of days, I think we all have been caught up in taking inventory of the last 8 months. It has been a journey, that is a fact, and all begin to wonder if something was gained or if all was merely lost. I look back and can say, with all assurance, that it was nothing like I expected. I learned nothing like what I expected to learn, and found things about myself that I didn't even knew existed. I think if I was going to give a name to the theme of this trip it would be...finding who I really am in Christ. It became a journey of healing and freedom of returning to the naked identity of who God has made me to be.The freedom of that identity hidden within Christ my Savior and my Friend. It is rather funny. I came here to save the world and set Africa free, when really it was Africa who set me free. Free from all the junk that I have kept hidden in the recesses of my soul. K.C. said it to me the other night. She was looking through my pictures one night and saw something that brought clarity to that which I was trying to put into words. She said, "It was like you didn't know who you were back then. But now you know and you carry within you now a deeper peace that others can feel when they simply sit beside you." And she was right. I didn't complete know who I was before now. I was always trying to become someone else for everyone I met. A professional "man-pleaser." I'm not saying that I am completely were I need to be or even were I want to be, but Africa has, in some way or another, brought me leaps and bounds onto a road that I will be traveling until I die. The road of becoming more like Him, but first I had to discover who He has called me to be not what man and this world wants me to be. It is a freedom in being yourself, a confidence you find when you discover the treasure in placing your trust in who He sees you as and not what the world sees you as. It is a place I have been fighting for all my life and when I ceased fighting and simply began trusting, He gave it to me. Freedom. I didn't even realize what I had gained until I sat down and asked. It seems like that is the way it usually happens. You spend your whole life fighting for something and than when you finally give up and surrender it into His hands, He gives it to you. The sad thing is, is that you usually never realize the gift His given you or even that He has given you a gift because you are so caught up on the next fight you are bound on winning and find that you can't win. I wonder if this is making any sense at all. I look back on my life and see so many things He has brought me through, healing He has constantly enacted in my life, and realized that 9 out of 10 times I have never even acknowledged it or realized it. He is so, so, so good. And I pray that I will begin to become more sensitive to the work the Spirit is doing constantly around me and never cease thanking Him for it. Even if I don't see it or feel it yet, but simply can trust in the fact that I know He is constantly in the work of perfecting and bringing into completion that which He has started in each of those He calls His own.
I look back and say with all confidence that I have been blessed beyond belief. He has given be gift upon gift, blessing upon blessing, and they are things that I never would have received in the same way if He had not brought me to Africa. It was only in a foreign and secluded place that such things could be birthed. I can now say, with a little trepidation, that if I had to do it all over again I would. That is to gain that which He has given. I think most of us can't even realize what He has exactly wrought and begun in each of us. Maybe we are not suppose to until much later, when our hearts are ready to receive it. But I can say beyond a doubt that He has done something, and that this journey was not in vain. Nothing He does, no road He brings you through, is walked or done in vain. His word does not return to Him void but completes that which He set it out to do. I can trust in that, in that I can rest.
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 4/26/2010
We
have left Kenya.
It was a bit of a shock at first but now that I am here I could not imagine a
greater blessing. The people here at True Vine are truly gifts from God. They
blessed us so much when we visited them in December and that blessing is being
poured out upon us 100 fold now. It was hard to say good-bye to all the people
that have been in our lives these last 3 months, but our Kenyan vacation truly
put a seal on the work done there. It is funny how we started this whole
journey in Uganda
and now we are ending it here. God's plans are amazing and always they blow me
away. During the moment everything seems chaotic but now as I look back I can
see His hand in it all. The intricate details I missed because I did not step
back and look at the artwork as a whole. Beautiful and intricate in detail.
Last night as we sat in a prayer circle God gave me this vision. It was like a
piece of fabric/artwork was 2 inches from my nose and I was lost in it. It
seemed so busy with the intricate black and white swirls across the entire
canvas and multi-colored fire garnishing points throughout the piece. I could
feel my worry and it was like I was lost in this maze of color I could not
understand. Than all the sudden I stepped back and I could see the intricate,
beautiful detail of the artwork and pattern it was fashioning. It was
beautiful. That is how this transition, this trip, has been for me. It seems so
chaotic as I am in the moment, but every time I look back I can see His hand
and the intricacy of His plan.
As we finish our stay here in Uganda, we will
be doing a lot of work with the medical center here, immunization outreaches,
working in the orphan center, education center, as well as doing work with
Smile Africa, a feeding program. It will be a great blessing and a wonderful way
to seal up the work He has already begun. I can feel Him healing all the bad
memories of the struggles and sickness that I had here in Uganda and exchanging
it with the fragrance of His beauty and restoring unto me what He has been
longing to show me. Giving me joy for mourning and beauty for ashes. It is a
wonderful gift and I will never be able to thank Him enough. Continue to pray
as we wrap up the few weeks we have left and as He seals the work He has begun
in each of us here in Africa.
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 4/7/2010
Yesterday we did a day of solitude. It was the first day that I could, would, finally write the words of were I truly was at with this trip, my heart...everything. I had been avoiding it for months. Longing to bring some clarity to where I honestly was at but avoiding the process as one avoids the plague. It was the first time I let myself face my own disappointment. My disappointment in what I called the trip when it really was with myself. My failure to gain that which I thought should have been gained. To experience that which I thought, in my romantic view, was supposed to be lived. It was the first time that I allowed myself to ask, "Why?" I laid it all down. My fear of the future, my fear of facing the past. My fear of feeling like an alien in my home, yet longing for home. Dealing with the ways I have been trying to cope and finally letting the Father heal. Letting Him teach me that which He has been trying to get into my stubborn head all along. It was rather a relief. I let it all come out. I let myself, willed myself to face the dirty laundry I had been keeping in the back of the closet and discovered a treasure inside.
You know one can spend a whole day listing one's grievances to God. One's fears that you would like to think as not being fears at all. Denying the source of the contention, turning a blind eye to the reason. Turning a deaf ear to the voice of healing because you dread the process. Dread the pain. Doubt the freedom. The promise. You fear the fear of having gone through so much that it was for nothing. You fear at looking because you are afraid you will discover nothing. You are afraid of understanding your own heart because you fear disappointing yourself. Of disappointing God. That this was all for nothing when it actually was for everything and I have just screwed it up beyond repair, beyond compare. That after all I have gone through, all I did was backslide 100 paces down a mountain I have been trying to climb all my life. Fallen into a pit that I don't have the energy or even the will to climb out of again. To climb the mountain again. To have gone through so much just to screw it all. Being driven into survival mode because I didn't have the strength to do what I was suppose to do and the enemy just annihilated me and...God let it happen. You face the question of whether you made Him let it happen. But you invariable come to the conclusion that He is bigger than your mistakes. That He loves to bind the broken hearts and bring freedom to the captives. That through it all no matter how much you screwed it all up your one desire was that you desire would be to please Him. You come to the conclusion that you are a broken vessel in the hands of the Great Potter, and maybe, just maybe, He broke you Himself so that He could create something even more beautiful out of the broken pieces. Level 2 of the dying seminary completed, or is it abandoned. Part of me wants to go home, another part wants to run away. A place where I am isolated from the world. Busia...Busia I fear dissecting. It is like a nightmare that is better left untouched. A door better left closed. Yet it is such an essential part of me that it has to be faced. I have to let Him touch. But in my fear, in my weakness, I don't even know how to begin processing. How to begin to even think about it. I get a bad taste in my mouth when I think of it. I squirm in my seat and my spirit gets into a wrestling poise. I dread driving through it to get home. Mbita has become like a being in a bad hospital after receiving a fatal wound. It tries to heal, to help you, but unwittingly it just pierces the wound more, makes the thought more unbearable to think about.
Yet He is the surgeon standing above me, denying me anesthetic, yet holding healing within His hands. Those hands that I have come to trust. To love. That have always caught me when I have fallen. Held me when I was afraid. And...I trust Him with it. Its such a personal thing. A place where no human being can touch, that no seminary can fix. It is a secret place where you are left with Him and Him alone. The author and perfecter of your faith. The one who promises to make all things beautiful in their time. Who sets you free for freedom's sake. Who loves with an everlasting love. Who can reveal things to you out of anything. You know how He set my heart at rest yesterday? He gave me joy out of the most idiotic revelation. I can just see Him smiling with His mischievous grin as He brings me freedom from nothing else but "License to Wed." Yeah, I'm not kidding, but it did the job. He was Robin Williams and I was the couple. The movie is all about a couple who go through a seminary with a pastor (Robin Williams) to see if they are ready for marriage. They go through it all terribly and you are quite sure they are failing miserable. They were convinced by the end that they had screwed it all up and that the test was over. They had failed and they simply were just not compatible with each other, not ready. After they separate, however, you still see the pastor hanging around and he says the most startling thing, "Right on schedule." A few scenes later, at the end of the movie, they are together where they were always suppose to be and the pastor is standing there to wed them. The girl turns and ask if they were the only couple to have failed the test. He turns and says, "Who said you failed." And they realize that when they though all was lost, when they thought they were screwing up the whole thing they actually were passing all along. They just had to go through the process to get were the where suppose to be. Where they were meant to be.
You know as many times as you find yourself sitting in the Pit of Despond and quite sure that you have botched it for the last and final time, you discover that He isn't surprised at all. That you are right where He knew you would be and He let you get there for a reason. To learn something you could learn no other way. That He has it all under control. Discovering that He has the whole world in His hands and that includes you. He knows your need. He knows your imperfection. It is actually your very imperfection that gives you the ability to experience the perfection of the Father in deeper way than your facade of perfection would ever let you go. Their is a freedom in embracing your nakedness and His holiness. Letting yourself admit to your nakedness so that you can be clothed in His righteousness. Admitting to the wounds that go so deep so that He can heal and touch that which you were in denial of existing. He is so good and I know in the depths of my soul that this journey has been for a reason. That I have gained something that can never be lost even if I can't see the fruit of it at this very moment. He holds my future, my past, my present, my life in the palm of His hand and it could be in no better place. I trust Him with it and here I can find peace, here there is healing.
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 4/7/2010
I don't know what I expected to be like as I neared the end of this trip, what I expected it to look like, but I know that it was nothing like what the Lord truly had prepared for me. Perhaps I was expecting great miracles, a huge revival, something...I don't know...something BIG. Yet what it has become is a training ground. A season of stripping and perhaps heating up the fire a bit more. I should have known. I remember when I was in Busia, Uganda the vision Alison got for me. It was a large apple orchard, trees as far as the eye could see. And every one of them where covered in snow. Stripped as trees are in the winter. Yet she got to see what was in the future. The fruit these trees would bear in the spring. The vision started with a picture of an apple and ended with the vision of a whole orchard stripped of the fruit, pruned a bit more so that in the future it can produce a greater abundance of mature, healthy fruit. Even before their were constant visions of the cost, of the refining. Yet I became lost in my romantic pictures of Africa and holiness. Being a robotic Mother Theresa. It was quite sad actually. This, this however, is so much better. I was looking at the outward appearance, but He, He was looking at the heart. So often I get caught up in what the future will look like and forget the journey, the cost to that place. I forget the infinite proportion and depth of the One I love, the God I serve. I think I am swimming in the ocean when I find that I am simply standing on the shore of the depths of His waters.
There really is nothing romantic about Africa. You come to a point where you discover the limit of your own love, your own patience, and what you once called the goodness of your character. You eventually will get tired of holding dirty kids who at one point are hanging all over you and the next moment trying to pick pocket you and pester you for money. You get tired of men's crude remarks and the dirtiness of your own body. You get tired of hearing "mzungu" yelled at you every time you walk down the road. You get tired of being sick and being tired. Your well runs dry quickly and your romantic notions of Africa are soon broken to pieces. You come to a point where it becomes necessary to see them with His eyes, were you have to be possessed with His heart to go through another day. So that they can experience that which you never could give out of yourself. So that you can experience the depths of His love as He pours it out of you. It is a bottomless well. It never runs dry.
This trip has taught me so much of the cost of love, of the gift of that cost. It has shown me the freedom of His truth, the security of His grace, the sufficiency of His nature. It is unforgettable and all-consuming. I pray that I never forget, never cease to treasure it. He is so good, so good to us, so good to me. I was consumed with what this trip would "look" like, and His point was to change the appearance of my heart by a new and revelation of His heart to the broken and needy. Seeing myself in every child and His unconditional love and patience for me. Understanding the limitedness and selfishness of my own nature and the infiniteness and sacrificial love of His own. A grace without bounds, a love without condition, a goodness without limit. I am so grateful for that which He has brought me through and am thankful that it is not even half way through yet. A journey into the depths of His heart, His character has no end, the landscape just simply changes. His grace has been more than sufficient and I thank Him everyday that He is Himself and not me and has way more patience with the inconstancy of my moods that I ever would. Thank you my love, may we always be awed and humbled by the I AM....It seems as though I have failed to say what I want to say. My friend Tara Boreman has described so much better of were we have all found ourselves. Her blog can be found at this link: http://taraborman.myadventures.org/index.asp?filename=learning-to-die. I encourage all of you to read it!
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 4/7/2010
As I and my team have been coming out of the Easter weekend this past week, a certain somberness to His sufferings, a certain realization of the cost has hit us all rather heavily. This week we have been ministering on Rusinga Island and, to be perfectly honest, it was a pretty bad week for us all. Between sickness, stress, and just plain exhaustion, I in particular was spending every 5 minutes wanting to sit down by myself and just cry; have my own little private pity party. Good Friday just happened to be the worst day of the entire week.
I was tired and during my quiet time as I set and watched the donkeys graze in the field and a group of girls attempt to ride a bike twice their size, I went through the whole list of grievances I had with God. All of them. Him bringing back to my mind the story of when Shasta had his particular pity party didn't help. I was in a contrary mood. I wanted my pity party, I wanted Him to tell me that my attitude was perfectly fine and that if anyone deserved better than what I was getting it was me. I wanted Him to feel as sorry for me as I did for myself. It got to a point where I went beyond the terribleness of the week to my disappointment in what I called the trip, but it really was just disappointment in myself. I was honestly on a roll. I set there and just simply cried and wallowed in my own disappointments, my extremely minor sufferings, my own self-pity and attempted to put them all on Him. I was being quite terrible and was like a small child having a temper tantrum. I look back now and can't get over His constant patience, goodness to me. My heart was needing, longing for a fresh revelation of who He is, but my mind was battling it. I was a bundle of contradiction. One minute asking why He wasn't saying anything and the next minute turning my head and reminiscing on what terrible luck I have been having lately. Of course an hour later, I was distracting by whatever agenda we had going on for that day and just decided to be in a funk the rest of the day and just freely feel disappointed in myself for being disappointed in myself and being disappointed in myself because I was feeling disappointed in Him....if that makes any sense. That night, however, I was ready to sit and listen.
We turned the Passion of the Christ on and as I set and watched I let my heart enter in and I set and I wept. I let my ears hear what He had to say to me that I night, and as I watched and listened to the evidence of His love for me my petty complaints and worries just fell by the wayside as I began to grasp a little more of the love He bore me. Long after the movie was finished, I just sat with Him and listened to what He had to say, repented of the small foxes that I willingly let in to ruin our vineyard. He is so good. He is worth so much more than what I can ever give. In our lives it is so easy to get caught up in our own injustices and wounds and forget, perhaps try to forget, that He has walked it all and so much more, and the love He has for us was the passion behind it all. Everything pales when brought into the light of His glory. I pray that I will never forget the cost of the sacrifice He bore for me, the love He has for me. That my capacity to grasp and retain will only continue to increase so that I may come a little closer in giving and pouring out on Him that which He deserves. Our highest praise.
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 3/18/2010
MY FAMILY CAME!!! It was an awesome time and I am so psyched that the Lord blessed me and my team with their visit. They were such an encouragement to each and every one of us, and they simply lavished us with American treats. It was a blessing to have those that are such models to me in the faith here to encourage and shed wisdom on so many matters. Their stay was short but I am sure that they got a pretty good taste of Africa. For starters, the very first experience they had was being stuck on Lake Victoria in a ferry with a car load of luggage and people. An experience that Paul and Jared swore they have never had or even heard of happening. One of those special one and only moments just for us. Also luggage got lost and they were stuck a whole day in Nairobi when their home flight was cancelled. All-in-all I think they all had a wonderful time, and it was a good enough first visit to Africa that all want to come back for future mission trips. It was a dream come true for a few of them and a blessing for me; I can't wait to see what God will do with the seeds now planted. They were truly manna from heaven (in more senses than just one) and I can't wait to hug them all again when I get home. To those who gave thank you for all of your prayers and donations, it blessed Paul and Erin so much and I am sure the orphanage will be blessed beyond compare.
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 3/18/2010
There has always been a place in my heart that has longed to be defined. A secret place in the inmost part of my heart that has longed for that indefinable something that only God can satisfy. An aspect of His character that I have longed to know, to touch, to see, but could never put into words. Each season in this life brings to life a different aspect of the Father that you could never touch, never recognize, never truly understand unless He had brought you to that exact place at that exact moment. The whole journey of this life centered on nurturing that divine relationship, entering into this great romance we have all been called to walk. During this season I have been in Africa, no matter where I am rather struggling with sickness and the lows of this life or riding on the waves of His love I can hear His continual whisper to my every question, "What can I be to you now that I could never be to you in any other circumstance, during any other time of your life?" There is something He is after in my heart, an aspect of His character that He longs to reveal to me, to show me if but I have the ears to hear, the eyes to see.
When you are placed in a foreign country with a foreign culture and a people that you had not known at all 5 months ago, your intimacy with the Father is tested and you begin to see what has been lacking, what is needed, and what is finished. When the fire was burning hot all my shiny exterior was stripped away my soul lay bare before my eyes and the eyes of my Maker. Yet His loving gaze never left mine and what I was lacking, what I desperately needed to possess I found in the sufficiency He is. When I was afraid, He became the courage I needed. When I was weak, than His strength was made perfect. When I felt incapable of loving anymore, of giving anymore, His perfect love shone forth and bathed us in its light. He is the all-sufficient God, the sovereign Lord. There is a rest that is found when one ceases striving and begins just trusting. When you make the startling discovery that He doesn't need you, but He wants you. A.W. Tozer puts it this way, "The hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help. We commonly represent Him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world, but, as said the Lady Julian, ‘I saw truly that God doeth all-things, be it never so little.' The God who worketh all things surely needs no help and no helpers. He needs no on, but when faith is present He works through anyone." He is my all-sufficient God and He is enough for me. I can rest in the fact that whether I screw it up or not He is always that loving Father ready to hold me and teach me. My strength when I am weak, the treasure that I seek, He is my all in all. My home and my fortress. Every time I am met with that which seems to hard climb, to heavy to carry and cannot go another step, He is always there. Gently whispering His love for me and showing me a piece of His character that I have never so intimately experienced before or so desperately needed before. He is truly enough, the self-sufficient God.
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 3/6/2010
Part II
Intercession literally means intervening on behalf of another (New
Oxford American Dictionary). In 1 Corinthians 2:10-13,15, Paul writes, "The
Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men
knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way
no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received
the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand
what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by
human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in
spiritual words...the spiritual man makes judgements about all things, but he
himself is not subject to any man's judgement." When we receive the Holy Spirit
we become partakers of the very heart of God, becoming carriers of His passion,
His righteousness, His judgements; bringing Israel and the Church to the
knowledge of the saving grace found in Jesus Christ and bringing His kingdom to
earth (1 Cor. 4:1,20; Hosea 3:4-5; Ro. 10:1; Ro. 9:3-4; Ro. 11:11; Matt.
23:37-39; Matt. 6:9).If Jesus is
interceding even now on our behalf then are not we, who are possessors of His
very Spirit, called to step into that very same ongoing reality of intercession
(Ro. 8:34, Heb. 7:25)? We are now called to be partakers of his suffering so
that we may also be partakers of his glory (Ro. 8:17). "In the same, way the
Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but
the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express"
(Ro. 8:26). "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). Therefore intercession is made through the Spirit, as
the Bride joins Him in divine unity.
Another key to effective
intercession is unity in the body. When we become possessed with the very heart
of God, then the body becomes one just as Jesus and the Father are one (John
17:11, 23). This is the Son's unceasing prayer for it says, "Make every effort
to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" and "Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God." (Eph. 4:4, Matt. 5:9).
Paul speaks of the fulfillment of this truth when he writes, "Instead, speaking
the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that
is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every
supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its
work" (Eph. 4:14-16). Again he prays out of the confidence of his identity
before his heavenly Father, when he writes, "For this reason I kneel before the
Father, from whom His whole family on heaven and earth derives its name. I pray
that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through his
Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have
power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and
deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge
-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Eph.
3:14-19). This is our glory that we may become one even as He is one. That we
may continually reveal to the world, through truth and love, the glory of our
Father and the saving grace given to us by His Son.
Every creature on this earth was created
by God for God and we who are possessors of His very Spirit were made to
continually reveal to all creation the glory of His nature. For "creation waits
in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed...We know that the
whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the
Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved" (Ro. 8:19, 22-24).
John G. Lake once said, "God the Father manifested Himself through that one
beautiful, holy, purified body of Jesus Christ in such a manner, such a perfect
manner, that when men look upon Him they did not see the man Jesus, but they
saw God. Until He ascended and sent His Spirit to the world, to the Church, to
you and to me. What for? That the new body should come forth and the Church,
the real Church - united to God, filled with the Holy Ghost, whose names are
written in the Lamb's Book of Life - are the body through which God is going to
manifest Himself to mankind again" (Liardon, 176-177). Nothing about God
contradicts Himself; when His people become possessed with the true Spirit of
God there ceases to be division, we become of one heart, one mind. I believe
one of the most startling things that the Church will possess in the last days
will not only be the power of God made manifest through them, but also the
unity and love that will exist between them. For we will be one just as They
are one and glory of God will be manifest through us "bringing many sons to
glory" (John 17:11, 23; Heb. 2:10). We will stand as did the Church of Acts
stood, confident in our identity, standing on the word of God, and we will see
His glory fall for surely "if the former rain was abundant, shall not the
latter rain be more abundant" (Deut. 11:14, paraphrased).
Posted in General Posts by Brittany Chisum on 3/6/2010
"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out
of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband...The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the
glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by
its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it" (Rev.
21:2, 23-24).
Lately the Lord has really been challenging me into a deeper level of
intercession and in bringing forth the church into the Bride He has called and
is soon coming for. It has been a heavy burden and passion for our team to see
a generation that will be a true lovesick worshipper that is free from the
spirit of religion that has bound the church for so long within its clutches.
Intercession has begun to play more and more of key role in our stay here and
Africa and has led me and a few others to begin seeking it out in true way.
Because of this I thought I would write some of my thoughts on how important I
believe intercession is to the church and some of the foundations that need to
be laid for the church to step in its spiritual authority as children of God
and the Bride to the coming King.
Intercession is the divine position in which the government of God is
administered through the activity of His servants. This being the case, "Our
struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the
authorities, against the powers of the dark world and against the spiritual
forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph. 6:12). Paul warns us that such a
battle must be fought with truth, righteousness, in faith, in the assurance of
our identity in Christ, peace, the power of the word of God, and through prayer
"in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests" (Eph.
6:14-18). Intercession is a reality the Church must walk in and recognize as
essential to the real Christians walk and what is going to hasten the day of
the Lord's return for "the nations will walk by its [the Church's] light." This
reality will not come into fullness until the Son of Man has established his
rule on earth as it is written in Revelations, however, as daughters and sons
of the Most High God it is a reality we can already step into for it says, "It
is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the
heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of
the word of God and the powers of the coming age" (Heb. 6:4-5). The Church of
God must get a real revelation of our inheritance in Christ and what we, His
people, have authority over and the power intercession holds as a governmental
rule in the house of God.
A key to walking in this reality is for each individual, and the Church
as a whole, to receive divine revelation of being a son and daughter of the Most
High God through the Spirit that resides within us. Paul wrote concerning this
when he said, "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you
did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received
the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.' The Spirit Himself
testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children,
then we are heirs -heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in
His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory" (Ro. 8:14-17). Do
you know the power that comes when we get the realization that we are children
of the most divine God? It is the secret to effective prayer, for when Jesus
taught us to pray He said, "This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father"
(Matt. 6:9); when He was raised from the dead and appeared to Mary in His most
glorious resurrected body He spoke, "Go instead to my brothers and tell them,
‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (John 20:17).
In Luke 11:13, He continues to speak of prayer and gives an illustration of a
father and his children for it reads, "If you then, though you are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in
heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Two huge keys lie then in
prayer as well as intercession: the first is knowing our identity in God as His
children, and second is the receiving of the Holy Spirit which confirms within
us the truth of who we are in Christ. "For you will receive power when the Holy
Spirit comes on you" and than "you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8). Who can be
a better witness of the Father, of Jesus, but a child of the Father, a brother
of the Son; "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). When we
received the Holy Spirit we became the very sons and daughters of God, the
representatives of God Himself.
