All About Holy Spirit: Visions, Open Doors, Transformation

Lead the way Holy Spirit! This is my focus as I speak, minister, travel…..Holy Spirit guides me in the Way, Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God is not some ethereal wispy wind, without form or function. Holy Spirit reveals Jesus Christ in directing my path. Holy Spirit reveals heaven’s direction,  guiding and leading me as I step out and move in what is revealed. Heaven manifesting on earth.

But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. 14 He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I’ve said, ‘He takes from me and delivers to you. (John 16:13-15 Message)

When we travel. Holy Spirit sets our agenda, opening doors into nations, gatherings, or even small home groups. He makes the way in Christ before we even get there, preparing the hearts of the people to believe, receive and be transformed as we minister Christ.

Here is how Holy Spirit moved through a service in Poland on April 3, 2016.

At the Sunday service in Elblag, worship flowed in a strong sound, escalating up into the spiritual atmosphere. I received a vision in which I saw a tunnel open up in the middle of the sanctuary. This tunnel extended from heaven to earth. As I looked up with the eyes of the Spirit, I saw a great cloud of witnesses looking down at us. It seemed that they wanted to be invited into the service, to see heaven connect with earth in that service on that day.

From years of ministry experience, I know as Holy Spirit gives vision, it’s  best to wait on the Lord to receive direction in how to move in the Spirit based upon what is seen with the eyes of the spirit.

I then had another vision where I saw myself and 2 others on the worship team begin to sing together at the microphone. No words. Just a clear sound of harmony, voices blending together, an escalation of drawn out notes in strength and power. As I asked the pastor if it was okay to do this, he said yes so I obeyed the vision from the Lord.

As we began to sing in harmony around one microphone, heaven continued to open up vision in others and myself. We saw the sound going out from the three of us as notes echoing up the tunnel into the heavenly realm. These notes bounced off the sides of the tunnel until they met the sound of heaven coming down with another sound. The two sounds mingled together and I could hear a heavenly chorus, loud and clear.

As these sounds increased, I saw in the Spirit, oil began to flow down the walls of the sanctuary. Oil signifies anointing. For that day, I knew that a healing anointing was present. I believed the Lord was present to heal in many different ways.

The Pastor came up to confirm the word by speaking about a heavenly chorus being released through worship. He then asked the worship team to sing a few more songs, which tied in with all that was going on. A beautiful anointing was present, a glorious story being played out, scripted by heaven itself.

As I began to preach. Holy Spirit then directed me to a new message, a time of storytelling to be exact. The story was about the woman with the alabaster box, facing a room of religious leaders, walking up to Jesus to anoint Him in a most timely and intimate manner with oil. It spoke of risking it all in the face of religious persecution to love Jesus.

The cry of the Lord this particular day sounded out through the word, through vision and worship and through the altar call. Healing – emotional healing for guilt, shame, deep roots of rejection. Physical healing of bodies. Spiritual healing to know that the love of God called many back to relationship with Jesus Christ.

This is flow. This is Holy Spirit who directs and scripts each gathering so that all glory honor and reverence goes to Jesus Christ. This is how Rivers of Eden ministers – in glory. I spend time worshipping in His presence, reading and studying the Word of God and then Holy Spirit flows from a deep well of Christ that is within my life. I am very excited about creativity expressed in Christ through Rivers of Eden in the days ahead.

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. 16 For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels––everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. 17 He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. 18 And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and––leading the resurrection parade––he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. (Colossians 1:15-18 Message)

In Christ,
Debra
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Rivers of Eden Ministry

Out of the Way – Off the Beaten Path – Sounds Like Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit loves to take us out of the way and off the beaten path where we discover the beauty of the journey and overwhelming joy in adventure. On those paths we meet Jesus in fresh new ways. He flows through our lives supernaturally. As a Christian, I am not called to walk in a rut, treading ground, looking down. No matter what the condition of my life right now or yours, we are seated in heavenly places, hidden in Christ, alive in Christ. Positionally? Yes. Experientially? Definitely yes.

…and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (Ephesians 2:6 NKJV)

Live out from this reality in knowing that in Christ we are eternal. Tune into the directives of heaven in Holy Spirit and life, as you know it will drastically change. Journey in Christ with Christ. Look at situations from an eternal perspective and engage with heaven’s call to walk in the Spirit right now, day by day. How we need Holy Spirit!

Live experientially from this reality. It’s called journey in Christ in Holy Spirit. Am I willing to be spontaneously shifted down an alternate path? Am I willing to take a road less traveled where I may be alone or find others just like me? The experiential outworking of our eternal reality, heaven’s directive, can completely wreck our life. Yet, what is the alternative? Living in the day to day, bored out of your mind, stuck in a rut. That is not Christianity, at least not to me.

Christianity is a journey, creatively scripted for each one of us who are new creatures in Christ Jesus. My reality – I live, move and have my being in Christ. Holy Spirit directs my life, shifts my path, and moves me into different places all at the sound of the whisper of heaven, the voice of God. This is reality. This is spirituality. And, this is my call and my life. To challenge people to desire to know Holy Spirit.

Change for change sake is not what I want for I can shift my direction, follow new agendas, travel the world and still be dissatisfied unless the directives come from the Lord. That is real adventure.

So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “ Give Me a drink. (John 4:5-7 NKJVS)

The right place at the right time. Allow the Lord to lead you to people and then let the prophetic rise up in you to speak life to them. You never know what can happen.

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “ Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship….(Acts 8:26-27 NKJVS)

Off the beaten path, led by heaven’s directive and there you have it…an encounter that changed a life. What comes next is even better….

Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. (Acts 8:39-40 NKJVS)

Shifted in time and space…..reality? Yes for some people. It has not happened to me….yet….but this is reality for some of my friends, who by the way are 80 year old grandmas living on farms in Oklahoma, raised Baptist and touched by Holy Spirit. Adventure. Journey.

There is so much more – read Scripture. Christianity – alive, living, moving, flowing…….I was saved at 35 and when I saw Jesus, my life was never the same. I voraciously studied Scripture. I also hungered for what I realized was available to me – a supernatural life. I have it. Testimonies abound. And more are coming. Journey today. Expect Jesus to be real in your life, living and moving through your life.

In Christ,
Debra

I would love to speak at your conference, gathering, church or home group. Contact me here, on Facebook or on Twitter. Enjoy reading about Rivers of Eden and the Timeline of our Life!

And the River Flows!

Creativity is like a river to me, flowing within the banks of discipline, hard work, risk, success and definitely failure. Without the restraint of the banks, the overflow of the river can be spontaneous and free but without direction and focus. It’s within the river that the work takes place in a flowing process, leading onward.

Creative people can get lost in moments that lead to other moments and before you know it, you are somewhere flowing over the banks far away from where you started. That seems free and spontaneous but it actually goes nowhere if you do that. Or we can just float along the river on a raft, enjoying the scenery but never putting creativity into action. There is restraint in creative process that requires risk and action.

I love spontaneity but I want to see my creativity harnessed within the process, between the banks of the river – greater flow, greater power to birth creative ideas. For me it’s like this. The creative process starts when I get ideas, thoughts, or revelation. As I move along with the river of God, these ideas grow and take form within me. I become focused and focus leads to action. Staying within the banks of the river requires risk and hard work. Staying within creative restraint, in the river between its banks, brings forth the work whether that is a blog post, art, music, business ideas or any number of ways. I can’t float along always talking about writing, dreaming – I take action in the flow.

At some point while flowing along in the river, faith and risk are byproducts of my discipline in the river. I got in the water. What did I expect? To float along forever, risk free, without any manifestation of my dreams, my creative ideas? That’s for people flowing over the banks – not me. I find myself alive in this creative river. I risk. I dream. I try and I keep trying. I do the work here. Creativity that only lives in ideas, never manifesting into reality, is not what I want at this point in my life. I keep flowing along. The scenery changes, birthing new ideas. People join me in the flow and we may even hook up for a bit to produce something in synergy that I could not produce alone. There is so much to say about this isn’t there?

As I live, move and have my being in Christ, rivers of living water in Holy Spirit flow out from my inner life, manifesting in so many creative diverse ways, touching other lives. It all starts in the river for me. Our ministry, Rivers of Eden, can be seen in this blog post. As I am writing this at Starbucks, I see that now. Over the years, the enemy has tried to block, dam, and dry up the river but it is still flowing through me and through Marvin, taking us on this creative journey. Now it’s time for others to join us in the river so we can impart life, love and creative destiny in Christ.

In Christ
Debra

I would love to speak at your conference, gathering, church or home group. Contact me here, on Facebook or on Twitter. Enjoy reading about Rivers of Eden and the Timeline of our Life!

Go Deep, Not Wide

Rivers of living water flow through my life. This is a promise given to me by Jesus Christ.

He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of the heart shall flow rivers of living water. John 7:38 (NKJV)

Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says. John 7:38 (Message)

What happens in those seasons when I only see trickles of water going forth, not a moving flow? Does the Word lose its reality and power? Of course not. The word is eternal, alive living. Yet, how about the manifestation in my life so that I am in sync with the word itself? Walking the Word is the way I love to say it.

I can’t force ‘flow”. Holy Spirit reveals Christ in my life. That flow is seamless and moving as my life is in sync with eternal realities in Christ. The Spirit directs the path and leads the way. It grows and I go from glory to glory.

Flow is that sweet spot, a seamless life in connection with God in Holy Spirit, living on earth with an awareness of the divine nature of Christ in me. (2 Peter 1:2) The Holy Spirit is our divine connector. (John 16:13-15) In reality, we are not moving in and out of the position. We exist in that place in Christ. We may have days where our awareness grows dim in the revelation, but that reality does not change as we are in Christ.

The awareness of the flow in Holy Spirit can be seen as mystical or supernatural and it is that. Yet I want to go beyond these words, which can immediately alienate people who feel they are neither mystical nor supernatural. Flow is life in Christ and the outworking of that life, His divine nature, is uniquely our creative expression in the earth today. I am in Christ and His life flows seamlessly through me.

I want to go deep in this revelation, deeper every day. I want to live in the midst of eternity invading my life. Rivers of living water flowing from me – my reality. The manifestation of this truth is multifaceted. Yes, there are the gifts of the Spirit in prophecy, healing, words of knowledge or wisdom – all of which sync us with heaven while on earth. Yet, I believe it goes beyond this when I contemplate the very life of Christ in me.

Paul says it like this: “…for in Him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17:28 NKJV)

Leonard Sweet has a great quote: “…to reveal Jesus’ incarnational beauty, truth and goodness to the world.”

To go deep? What does that mean for me? Living life out of the mix at times. Moving past updating, checking every post on my feed, keeping ahead of the latest developments so that I am trending my life in the moment. This is life living in the shallow water. Why? Because information never ceases. The Internet never shuts down and I will never get ahead of it. It will only cease to widen my life into an unrecognizable form. I want to go deep, not wide. I don’t need to know anything or follow any prescribed formulas. I follow Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19 NKJV)

Each of us has a journey in Christ. This diversity infuses the Body of Christ with creativity and originality. It is essential that we go deep, not wide. Too many live in the shallows right now. Journey out into the deep in Christ Jesus.

Image #1 – Flickr – Pandu Adnyana
Image #2 – Flickr – Jogendra Joshi

In Christ,
Debra

I would love to speak at your conference, gathering, church or home group. Contact me here, on Facebook or on Twitter. Enjoy reading about Rivers of Eden and the Timeline of our Life!

The Journey Part 3/3 – Grace To Navigate These Times or What Now?

Fear can grow in me when I choose to be present looking at reality as it is, not as I want it to be. Is it a fear of being in the moment? How about a fear of fading into the facts of the current situation? What to do?

Faced with a situation that just IS I can panic and run away. There are more ways to run than I can imagine. I can run emotionally into denial, not accepting God’s way for me, even as it involves a measure of pain. I can run physically away, changing locations or moving. I can even run away spiritually, not wanting to look at God, thinking He doesn’t have my best interests in His heart. Look around, lots of people are running aren’t they?

Faced with a situation that just IS – I can also sink down into discouragement, feeling lost and trapped. I live life from a subdued place of hopelessness, thinking that it will be like this forever. Thinking that nothing will change, I resign myself to suffering without purpose. There is always a purpose to suffering.

Submit to the process. More importantly submit to God’s hand holding me in a place where I don’t necessarily want to be. His ways are good, right, purposeful, meaningful, justified and filled with love and grace. Like a good Father, He sees the end from the beginning. He knows process is essential for growth and maturity. Since when is Christianity all about ‘me” anyway– my desires, my wants, my needs? There are numerous verses that support suffering in this mix called life. Life is kaleidoscope of it all – joy, peace, suffering, freedom, pain, hope, mercy and love, lots of love – shifting and changing as we journey through each season.

Jeremiah was speaking to a people intent on getting out. He said, “Settle in.”  At this point, there are very few choices. Obey God, even when you can’t see the whole picture. Don’t fight the process. You will end up constantly stressed and strained in life. Jeremiah did say, “Settle in.” He also went one step further than that. He said “Bloom where you are planted. Live. Love. Grow.” (My words.) Not only submit to God but also submit with joy. Ouch!

So what now? There are three ways that work for me when I don’t want to do what God says to do but I love Him so I submit to His plan. He’s a good Father. So, settle into the present and trust Him. It’s all about seasons. Seasons change and this one will too but there is something to learn here and I don’t want to miss it. I can’t always get what I want.

So, in the day-to-day how do I go about this?

Be present in the moment, in submitting to the way, His way. Don’t dwell upon the ‘what if’s’ or ‘what was’ – look at the ‘what now.’ Doors will open while walking in the present moment. These are hidden doors in the Spirit, doors that open as I mature in wisdom and grace. They are readily available to all of us but many simply don’t see them because they refuse to submit to these times of refining. Jesus encountered many opportunities on His way to the cross – the woman at the well (John 4:7) and the woman with the issue of blood (Matthew 9:20), to name a few. His life was filled with a keen sense of seeing through moments of time with the eyes of eternity. At these moments, while in submission to His Father’s will, eternity invaded earth. Be present. Allow Holy Spirit to draw us into the present where creative opportunities await where heaven will invade earth.

Focus on the Way, the person of Jesus Christ during this time. Focus. I may be unsettled but His way for me is sure, filled with light and life. As I walk in sync with Him, like the guys on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24), my eyes will open to SEE. Just walk and listen. This is a great time for listening. I don’t settle into passivity, apathy, or inertia. I settle into Him and He is moving in my life. Day by day, He shows me how to navigate the NOW by establishing my coordinates in the Spirit. He gives me wisdom concerning this time, if I listen. He leads the way and I follow. The next season is on the horizon. I keep my eye on it while being present. Time differs for each person. Don’t look at anyone else. Look at Him. He knows that NOW is part of my process into my next season. Just keep walking. Focus establishes hope again and hope does not disappoint. Hope grows and passion stirs in each step of our journey. Don’t run, don’t fear – submit to the process.

Be real. He can handle it. My emotions go up and down along the way. I am not robotic or cloned. I still question, get upset, and cry. Religion confines me to clichés. Here in the now, clichés are broken in an atmosphere where my authentic life is developing. I can’t say what I don’t mean. I say what I feel to a Father that loves me and does not disregard my weakness. In my weakness, He is strong. I don’t like this. I’m not happy. Isn’t there another way? I’m angry. This hurts. I can’t handle the pain. Keep walking. Express your emotions to Him but don’t let them stop you. If they are so intense, just lay down on the floor and let it out. He can handle it. He’s our Father.

There are seasons in every Christian life. In these seasons, we draw deep from the wells of our salvation, giving it new depth and meaning that enhance our life’s purpose in the coming days. I can’t say that each step on this journey has been easy. Just yesterday, I was in a ‘mood’ wanting out, wanting to get away, wanting life to be a bit different. Then after brooding for a bit, I began to worship and talk to the Lord. He was right there with  me things changed over the course of the day.

So how long does one find themselves in this place of settling? I don’t have an answer for you. I wish I did. Unlike Jeremiah’s day, I don’t think it will last 70 years. It could be a season of a few days, a few months, or a few years. He knows. Each of us is quite unique and different. Just trust Jesus in the process. The purpose of process is rooted in relationship and intimacy in Christ and there is no formula for that. Be present. Be focused. Be real.

In Christ
Debra