Spiritual Growth and Emotional Breakthrough

In the last month I've be blessed with the opportunity to spend a lot of time with God as I've been alone at home. I've been using my time to get the most of it that I can through spiritual growth and by pressing into God and seeking his truth.

I'd like to share the resources I've been gobbling up and building my faith and understanding of the Lord with.

CHAPTER 1 - TALKING TO GOD

My attention was brought onto the spiritual and the plans of the enemy when I picked up a book, back in July, called The Freedom Diaries by Mark Hollaway. He's a New Zealander and came to my church at least a year ago, that's when my dad got a copy of the book. Mark teaches other people to hear from God through writing and typing out your conversations with him. I think this is an extremely effective way to force yourself to be humble and expect him to do some talking for a change. If we have the Holy Spirit living in us then we should never ever think that God is far away, instead we have a direct and open connection to the Father. So practicing this way of talking to him and hearing from him was a catalyst to hearing him more even when I'm not expecting an answer to a specific question.

Another important thing that came up while I was exploring The Freedom Diaries is the fact that the enemy's lies are always just out of reach because he's been filling the world with them for years and the world doesn't even see it. I started noticing those thoughts and seeing that Satan only ever lies. I realised I've believed and partnered with a lot of them and I wanted to get things sorted out; what is really the truth? Answer: God's word.

CHAPTER 2 - A.D.

My journey continued with the show on Netflix called A.D Kingdom & Empire. It's also known as The Bible Continues. The 12 episodes follow what the apostles got up to and the struggles they faced as they began the New Testament church in Jerusalem and spreading. This performance of the biblical narrative from the book of Acts is really incredible to watch as it embellishes just a few things for theatrical licence. I have fallen in love with the Apostle Peter's passion and faith in Jesus as he went around preaching the gospel after Jesus ascended and sent the holy spirit. You can really see why they would have had so much opposition and issues amongst themselves as they were persecuted, particularly by Saul who also became a character I appreciate so much more now for his letters to the churches.

It's incredible now the revelation I've had, just referring to the fact that I am privileged to have copies of those very same apostolic letters to read and learn from for myself. Letters that were from the very same character's of Paul and Peter that I have come to want to be best friends with after seeing them portrayed so passionately in this piece of television. It's a truly moving and very eye opening cinematic display of the truth of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit in the first century.

CHAPTER 3 - APOLOGETICS

I have always believed in God and never had to go through that mental barrier before I could actually experience him working in my life. Other people in the world need more convincing so it's a good thing we have the proof if anyone wants it. I recommend the YouTube channel InspiringPhilosophy. They have highly logical explanations of history that really point to the existence of God, the life and Resurrection of Jesus, and my personal favourite discovery is the proof in the old testament that Jesus was around and working as God before he was conceived as a human (Hint: he was known as the Angel of the Lord).

CHAPTER 4 - THE LAST REFORMATION

Next I have to lead into The Last Reformation a Ministry, Youtube Channel, and Movie surrounding a man named Torben Søndergaard, and his work to bring the churches we are in today, back to how things operated in that first movement of the church. As Christ's disciples we are commissioned to go out and preach the gospel, heal the sick, baptise with water, cast out demons and save the lost.

It's really strange how when we read the bible we will believe that the cases of Jesus casting out demons from people was real but then we think that since it's been 2000 years that maybe all the demons have died. That's not true at all, there are still hundreds of thousands of demons in this world making people sick, blind, angry, crazy, mentally ill, gender confused, sexually confused, and filling our heads with all sorts of other lies. It's very typical for people to have demons in them. It's very typical for a bad mod to be brought on by stepping into a demon. It's very typical for your negative thoughts to have been whispered into your mind by the enemy. There's no need, to be scared, we have authority over them through the spirit of God that lives in us, and we can capture those thoughts in their tracks and say no to them, but people- don't forget the enemy is real and he has plans to lie to you, confuse you and just destroy you.

There's a whole lot more inspiring stuff from that channel so go check out some of their videos.

CHAPTER 5 - SEER

I was next lead to find Jonathon Welton who is a seer. Someone who operates in the spiritual gift; discerning of spirits. Seers are supposedly able to see those demons, angels, and the spiritual damage people have in them. They see the spiritual world through the eyes of their own spirit and this is mixed in with how they perceive the physical world.

I don't mean to sensationalize the gift or discredit it.  Rather than desiring the gift I think the important thing to recognize is that the world can hurt us and there may be spiritual reasons for our emotional pain.

I would understand if a logical thinker had the opinion that seeing weapons stuck in a person's body is really a glorified metaphor for some emotional damage that person has which would track more with the gifts of knowledge and wisdom. The response for anything someone sees should be prayer which I have tended to forget when I'm sucked into wondering what is going on in a literal spiritual realm around us.

I think many people have complications that would be described differently depending on the person making the diagnosis. Many a pastor sees spiritual issues where a psychologist sees PTSD. We need to have grace and be open minded because God will know before we do what should best be done for each situation. Sometimes prayers are answered, sometimes we know healing is a long process.

Check out some interviews of seers and then Johnathan's 5 part lecture on how to understand the spirit realm with a good description of how we and other entities occupy the same world.

CHAPTER 6 - SPIRITUAL GIFTS

This encouragement lead me to want to have a better understanding of the other gifts of the spirit (Paul lists them in 1 corinthians 12) and I found a video series that I believe to finally give me the clarity I was missing my whole life as a believer who got visions when I will pray for people.

The course is found on the YouTube Channel by Neal Reyes, where he breaks down every gift and its functions. But I'll also tell you what I now understand them to be because He doesn't really give it in such a simple to understand way.

Maybe you can look at this and finally work out what gifts you have been operating in- I always had it confused before this week.

The 9 Gifts Of the Spirit

Revelation Gifts - Eyes of God

Wisdom - A message concerning the future usually given through a symbolic vision that you will need to interpret; and then pray intersession over it if it was a warning.

Knowledge - A message concerning the past or current situation usually given through a symbolic vision that you will need to interpret.

Discerning of Spirits - Using your spiritual eyes to see the spiritual world around us (constantly or through visions), to understand what spirit motivates a person's words and behaviours. To see angels is to operate in this gift.

Power Gifts - Hand of God

Faith - A 'surge' of supernaturally unlimited faith with which one can take authority over the weather and command other 'big' miracles e.g. the reproduction of food for a large group of people.

Healings - Power and authority to command healing over each of the 39 groups of medical practice. (You may have seen people healed from smaller things originally and then it grows to more serious things).

Miracles - Being lead, sometimes in strange ways, to orchestrate miracles, eg resurrections, healings, changes in substances, production of gold, and potentially teleportations go in this group too.

Inspiration or Utterance - Mouth of God

Prophecy - To be lead to speak a message of edification, exhortation or comfort, in your own language, to the church or fellow believer. And when you pray you may be lead to pray on unexpected topics.

Spirit Tongues - To supernaturally speak in languages of men (old forgotten languages, maybe?) and to speak in the language of Angels. This is a prayer language that when the holy spirit is speaking through you, you will pray for things you don't know need praying about, and which intercedes for the future, as it also builds the presence of God. You may sometimes be lead to speak a specific message in tongues that is to be interpreted for a non-believer to hear.

Interpretation of Tongues - To be lead to speak an interpretation of a message that was spoken in tongues for a non-believer to hear and understand God message to them.

It turns out that any person who has the Holy Spirit living in them can begin to operate in all of these gifts as they grow in their walk with God, so if you want them you can pray for them. But know that they are to be used for the edification (building up) of the church; They are all meant to be encouraging, not something to be prideful about. Torben Søndergaard believes that all of us should be able to pray to command healing; especially considering that as disciples we are called to heal the sick. We need to stop believing the lie that we will not ever be able to use these gifts, and see angels or pray for someone and see them be healed, or speak in tongues. Be faithful with what you have been given and you will grow.

CHAPTER 7 - DREAMS

As I realised that I very often see visions when I pray for people, I don't always know what the symbols I see mean. I have my own feeling of what it means but as I've been operating in the revelation gift of knowledge there will be a more specific message from God for the person. I'm no longer happy just telling them what I think it means.

And God knows I have a keen passion for finding out information from teaching resources and I found something that as I practice, and continue to be lead by God, I have been finding more accurate interpretations for the visions I get.

So what resources do I recommend?

- First continue to be lead by the spirit for God's own interpretation.

- Second, be familiar with the word of God - the Bible is full of symbols being used to sent a message; Dreams, the book of Proverbs, Jesus' parables, and the whole book of Revelation. Many of the pictures you will have visions of will link to a use of that thing in the bible.

- Thirdly I recommend the teachings of John Paul Jackson. He hosted the show Dreamipedia and has given the case for all dreams being spiritual rather than conducted by your soul (your emotions, will, and intellect). 

So I've also been studying how to interpret dreams. I recommend watching A Case for the Biblical View of Dreams and this particular dictionary website looks very promising: Unlocking Your Dreams by Autumn Mann.

I'll use her quote to explain; "This free online Dream Dictionary is an organised listing of symbols sometimes found in spiritual dreams and their most common meanings. This should in no way be a substitute for listening to what the Holy Spirit has to say about your particular dream, but rather it is meant to be a tool to aide you in dream interpretation.

"The dream symbols & their definitions found in this dictionary stem from Autumn Mann’s own study & experience, as well as the following men & women , who have impacted this ministry profoundly. Recognition given to: “Dictionary of Dream Symbols” by Dr. Joe Ibojie, “Understanding Dreams & Visions Course 201” By John Paul Jackson, “Dream Language” by James W. & Michal Ann Goll, “Seers Handbook” by Sharnael Wolverton, & “Understanding the Dreams you Dream” by Ira Milligan."

I hope you find something in here inspiring. I think it's all very incredible stuff and I want you to be encourage to grow in your spirit so you can go on to make a bigger impact in your calling.

Image by Couleur from Pixabay