This blog post will be a long read but may it be worth your time. It is about how G O D finally got my attention
recently and showed me the timeline of how the enemy caught me in a weakened
condition and almost took me out with his IFs!!!
A little background: In June of 2019 I started a journal to record
what I and another person from our congregation was hearing from GOD. Over the next few months, I heard a few
things that I really believe were from GOD. During this time, I also left my
full time job, with my husband’s blessings (after we had just bought a house a
few months prior) to begin working part time at our main church campus. I was
excited that I could start to focus more on prayer and the directions I felt
GOD was leading me. BUT right before the
end of the year, it was obvious that I was losing focus, I was just TIRED! I
had a lot of pain in my body, and I had true brain fog more days than I wanted
to admit to. By the time 2020 started I was barely making it thru on the days I
had to leave the house and work. Did I pray about it, well yes! But what I did more than pray was to begin to
question whether I had even heard God correctly when I shifted my entire
direction in June of 2019, the same month I bought the journal, gave my notice
to my full time employer, and accepted a part time job at our main campus. I began to question in my heart but tried to
defend with my mouth why I wasn’t progressing as I felt I should, why I didn’t
feel good most days and why I was just miserable in a way I could not explain. By Feb of 2020 I was done, I stopped
journaling in the above mentioned journal, I had decided I was not working
where I was supposed to be working and I was just ready to sit for a minute and
rethink life. My last day of work was March 12, 2020. Funny thing was the next
week the entire country shutdown, so I really felt justified in my heart that I
made the right choice to sit down and get still, because with all that was
going on around me, I must have heard right this time (please accept when I
tell you I was truly rolling my eyes at myself as I typed that last
sentence). Funny how we just like Adam
(remember his statement... it was that woman) will try to justify anything once
we have allowed the IFs of the enemy into our life.
The title of this blog to some believers may seem to be a silly
statement until you realize that we as believers do it all the time. In Matthew
4:3 the devil comes at Jesus with these words, “Now when the tempter came to
Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these
stones become bread.” Jesus was at 40 days in the desert and probably HUNGRY! Notice
how the devil phrases it, IF YOU ARE, y’all the enemy knew who Jesus was!!!
He was just trying to drop doubt into
Christ’s mind about His identity. Notice
he was using the same ole trick that he tripped Eve up with… doubt. As believers we often allow the enemy to do
the same to us. Don’t believe me? Why do we explain who we are to the enemy,
often screaming I am a child of God when he comes at us? He already knows who
we are, that is why he comes at us. We address our identify with people around
us and even to ourselves as well. We question,
let me speak for just me… I have questioned OFTEN who I am and why in the world
GOD would want me to represent HIM on this earth. I have often IF’d about if Christ really
meant that I had the same power within me to do here on earth what HE did? Come
on now is that really possible??? Seriously???
But make no mistake about it y’all, HE wants us to do exactly that, it
is clearly written in His word over and over again. We as the church body for the most part have
missed it when it comes to our complete identity. Y’all signs and wonders are not only for the
Preachers, Pastors, Revivalist, or even the latest & greatest Healer on
tour to operate in. The same Holy
Spirit that is in them is in us!!! Yet
we (me) have spent most of our time addressing our identity with the enemy and
his little minions! They have totally enjoyed keeping us locked up (operating)
in fear, doubt, and unbelief and not in what God has given us.
During most of 2020 I just sat…. I was a mindless blob, who could
not think very clearly, didn’t feel good physically and it got worse and worse
as the year went on. I had 1,000 excuses for why I sat down, not feeling good
in general and of course that thing called Covid-19. By December 2020, I finally
had a name for one of those excuses and why I was in the state I was in. The
mysterious aliment that had been keeping me in a cycle of weariness, pain and
confusion for several years finally revealed itself completely… Atrial
Fibrillation. According to a few doctors, and nurses in my family, why I didn’t
have a massive stroke or simply have my heart stop or explode in my chest is a
miracle (I tell everyone now that I am THE favorite child of a GOOD GOOD
DADDY). I thank GOD for the day my heart appeared to have stopped and my
husband called 911. I feel strongly it was GOD allowing the physical me to get a
restart so HE could get my mental and spiritual man restarted as well! I spent
about 6 more months walking in fear and what IFs. Then after a heart procedure as my physical
healing progressed and my doctor uttered these simple words, “GO LIVE YOUR LIFE
and quit worrying” I finally realized that I may have (did) let the enemy in
my head way past what I wanted to admit to, and the truth was I made all those
excuses to hide that fact from myself. I started to question my questioning. I
started looking at why I felt so dry spiritually. I started to address my
identity with GOD and what HE really wanted from me. I kept banging on the door
of Heaven for an answer AND a few days ago I finally got a public answer to my
question.
Now here we are… once I started asking the right questions to the
right SOURCE, and I got public in the right setting about what I understood the
answer to be… Holy Spirit has been a chattering away ever since!!!! Seriously
though, God is probably relieved HE finally has my attention. HE has me laser
focused on a few things, one of those things is a book that I bought in 2020
that has laid on my desk for over a year. I had started flipping through it a
few months ago when our senior Pastor started meddling, uhm I mean teaching on
a subject that is near and dear to my heart. When I got home after the service I got public and answered in (nothing speaks louder than being the first front
and center at an alter call and you not realizing it til you are already up
there… 😂) I decided that until I really read this book nothing else was going to distract me. And that is when I came across this: "Jesus didn't even address the identity
part of this question. Jesus knew who He was. He brought the situation right
into a heavenly perspective." Y’all IT shook me to my core!!! Holy Spirit
started whispering in my ear, “you were already sick in 2019 but didn’t know
it. You had heard GOD right and stepped
out in faith in the right direction AND that put a target on you, but G O D
knew what was coming the time was not wasted. He used it to expose and repair
things you didn’t realize were killing you physically, mentally, and
spiritually. The time is now being redeemed, GET BACK UP OLE GIRL!!!” Let’s return to Matthew 4:3, The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the
Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” There is that IF but look how Christ answers him in
Matthew 4:4, Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall
not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus did not even address, acknowledge or give the enemy a
door to slither into about His identity.
So here I am today… done
with addressing my identity with the enemy, done explaining who I am and what I
know God has called me to walk in and worrying what others think. My question to you is, have you been
addressing your identity with the RIGHT or the wrong entities? For me I know I did for a long time, it
didn’t change my salvation status, nor did it ever change what G O D had
already placed in me, but it did keep me from operating in all I have
inside of me. What Christ had on earth we have!!! What the Pastors, the Evangelist, the Prophets,
and Healers have we already have inside of us as believers as well. We simply must
learn to no longer address our identity with the enemy… AND start addressing
the issues that are in front of us from a heavenly perspective just as Christ
did in the desert.
I pray you know who you really are and walk in all the peace and
power that is yours by right as a child of the Most High God! Now let me go
address some things as GOD would have me to!
Selah
Beni Johnson, The Happy Intercessor, p96
