United with Dan on a Mission

6.6 FEAR of God

From the start of the DTS this was the week that I was dreading. The ‘FEAR’ of God was one of the centre pieces that fuelled my anger and opposition towards God in the past.  For most of my life the only reason I chose God, was because if I didn’t, I would go to hell. In my mind it just seemed ludicrous to love some God for that. Why does anyone even bother? A natural reaction to ‘fear’ is ‘fight or flight’, and I generally fall into the fight category. Thus teachings of “FEAR GOD” in no way helped me; it only made me more and more opposed to the idea of God. It just seemed so contradictory to the nature of God. Besides, fear is not of God or from Him. On top of this, I had heard that the speaker was South African, and when others spoke of her, she gave me the impression of a “rugged-forceful-Afrikaans-teacher-type”, with whom I had bashed heads too many times in the past.

We started off the week by praying and inviting the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts. Same old, same old… but somehow as the day drew to a close, I realised that my mind had been oddly quiet and non-critical, for some weird reason. Then we dove into her testimony of God, which went like this: “I feel so lonely God.” Then God answered her and said, “I miss you too, Lindsay.” She was confused by His response and God went on to say, “Lindsay, loneliness is a lie. I’ve never left you, nor will I forsake you, you keep trying to strive into my presence when I’ve been sitting with you this whole time waiting for you to acknowledge me. I’m not a father that just wants to do spiritual things with you!” Somewhere amongst all this, God also said that He wants to watch anime with me. I haven’t gotten round to it yet, as there just isn’t time, but I am intrigued by what may come of it.

Hearing her revelation pierced right through my cold critical mind and made a highway to my heart / spirit for everything that was to come this past week. Somehow I found myself hanging on every word spoken. And so we dived into what the ‘Fear of God’ actually means, as well as Hebrew and Greek interpretation of it. Apparently there are 2 aspects to it. The word ‘fear’ really does give off the wrong impression. Apparently the Swedish and German translations don’t translate it as ‘fear’, but rather in the lines of to ‘respect’, to ‘honour’, to ‘revere’ (KJV translation) and be ‘in awe of’. The other aspect is to believe in Jesus and the promise of God in 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all righteousness” thus making us righteous, and unlocking many many more promises regarding being righteous in God’s sight. It finally went from my head to my heart; my and your sinful self died with Jesus on the cross that day – it’s a free gift from a God who loves us dearly since before our eyes first saw the light of day. We just have to accept this gift and be cleansed. Part 2 is that in our righteousness and learning to ‘love and fear’ God, we are free to hate sin like God hates it [good results will come from this] and to love justice as God loves justice.

For me this is a totally opposite spectrum of fearing God to which I grew up with. Nobody has ever gotten right with God by keeping a religion or rules; if a person gets twisted into believing like that, even the Bible calls him a fool. It’s only because of the Grace and Love of Jesus that we can get into the kingdom at all.

Meanwhile other things were happening too. I have returned to the door [mentioned in 6.4] again and again. I decided to take one step in and to just sit and watch the ‘whiteness’, enjoy the ‘presence’, and admire a form of God. I’ll wait for Him to come forth. I thought further on how to interact with Him. Perhaps this is a ‘good’ place to come to when I read the Bible, maybe I should throw a ball in, or find a compass. After the ‘fear of God’ discovery, and reading by the doorway, John15:3 spoke to me, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” Then John15:2, I can trust Him to cut off the branches in me that bears no fruit, and to prune the fruitful ones for more fruit. Thus just sitting here for now is ok. He will prune this branch too. Almost immediately, as I reached this conclusion, a thick curtain (sown together in the middle) came crashing down in front of me, sealing the light from me. I felt a swell of rage in me at the scenario thinking, I’ve come through the door, I was just starting to embrace this place and then down comes this blasted curtain sealing it all again! Suddenly the curtain in the temple came to mind and that it was torn when Jesus died. I spoke out to the curtain with authority that I hadn’t felt before saying, “NO! You’re a lie! You were torn in two that day! GET LOST!” The sowing came lose, and with a heavy ‘woosh’ the curtain fell down and disappeared. Then out of the whiteness emerged a holy glow in a diamond ◇ shape. In the centre was a Celtic cross with beautiful clear rays of light that gently merged with the others.  Here is a painted example trying to represent the Cross.

I knelt down and asked His Holiness to search me for impurities, guilt and sin and to wash it all away. Suddenly my consciousness left my body and jumped about 4 meters back. My body was just a black silhouette in front of the light. Next His Holiness enveloped my body and the darkness began to crack and rays of light began to break through the cracks. In seeing all this, I realised that my body / flesh is just a shell for me while on this Earth. And with that Wednesday the 17^th drew to a close.

Early Thursday morning I awoke with a MEGA headache. I was nearly paralyzed by it. Groaning in my helplessness I forced myself up, got dressed and stumbled my way to the kitchen for breakfast, and then to class for the days lectures. I felt absolutely terrible and the day ahead looked like a mountain of despair and anguish. There were concerned faces all around. I just grit my teeth and went to take my place. I was asked what was wrong. I spoke about the headache and they proceeded to pray and bless me, and within an instant the headache fled. I had a small celebration, but the headache had had me awake since 4am that morning, and while it was only 8-ish, it had exhausted me. During the lectures I had the revelation of my freedom to hate sin, and realised that I can take my rage / wrath out on the principalities and powers behind the sin as much as I want. As the morning went on, the headache suddenly came back, again they prayed for it and it vanished. At this point I was convinced that the enemy was trying to interrupt my plans for the day, because just after lunch (as I had decided I wanted to get baptised) the time for my water baptism was waiting for me. The voice in the back of my mind was nagging so much that day about how uncomfortable it will be, how cold it will be, and how it’s just another ritual, blah, blah, blah… it went on like a really pesky brommer (noisy fly).

So why did I choose the water baptism? Long story short, because God had highlighted it the previous week saying: “Why wait? You said you wanted to dive in at the deep end. Go do it. It will only add to the wind in your sails.” The experience was so refreshing, my mind became numb. Now still, it feels like my mind is being left behind, confused by too many wonderful things happening for it to keep up. The critical nature of it has fallen largely silent, just being way too overwhelmed. I experienced a flood of Joy within me. I believe that many shackles holding me down were broken through doing that, and the strongholds of the enemy were shaken lose. I am experiencing a new kind of peace.

Later that night we had a ministry night and we were led to ask God what our spiritual self looks like, the one ‘already seated’ in heaven with him. Eph2:6-7. God answered me by bringing up the vision I had on the cliff way back in the beginning of this journey [Chapter 5: About Visions and Experiencing the Supernatural]. Confused I said, “Surely that’s not what I look like in the spirit… That is far too great for where I am now. Then God began to speak and said,” Today you were baptized, you are as white as snow and pure in me. Today you have been reborn a pawn (Chess piece) in my kingdom. This means you have salvation, but it’s up to you to decide if you’re happy to just sit on it; whether you’re fine with just being a pawn in My Kingdom… Because quite frankly I’m not. Like in chess when you reach the requirements as a pawn you change and become greater than before. Now I desire for you to come over this way. You’ve already grasped the fullness and splendour of My armour. I’ve already given you deep revelation to what salvation, righteousness, truth, justice and so on are. Now you need to learn how to wield it. This is what I have planned for you this season, become a knight in My Kingdom, and lay waste to the Kingdom of darkness. But don’t think it ends there, after you’re a knight, I want you to pursue becoming a bishop / scholar, a blessing to others, someone who guides and leads others to the light. Later I want you to become a rook, a stronghold, a shelter for others, a place of refuge and safety. Wait on Me and believe that My word is true. I will guide you in the seasons to come in your life. Believe Me and in the fullness of time you will becoming My bride (Queen in Chess) and a true prince in My kingdom, my son.” This experience absolutely wrecked me. I could do nothing but sob and praise Him for his Greatness, Mercy and Love for little o’ me. I lost track of time. I was just praising Him.

Now as I’ve been writing this He came to me again, and was joined by a whole host of others cheering me on. He said, “Remember how I left the 99 to come after you? Remember the parable of the lost sheep? We had a massive celebration on Thursday when you were baptized, and you brought me great Joy with your praises that night. We celebrate at each of your successes, no matter how small. Then he gestured over yonder with elbow… the sobbing started again, I’m getting wrecked again… Praise be to God for his intimacy! Standing where he had gestured, clapping along with other saints and angels, was Grandpa Faure.

On Friday the 19^th we wrapped up the week’s lectures with 5 ways to increase our “Fear of the Lord.”

• One: We can ask for it; only a fool doesn’t ask. Proverbs 1:22 “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?”…”since they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.” Prov 1:29
• Two: Prov 4:25 “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” In other words, see God for who He is and follow the path laid out for you; expose, share and marvel at His wondrous works. Here the speaker had a word for me specifically saying: “Embrace your compassion for people, while you might not be able to do anything for them, God can intercede on their behalf, bring them to God, and as for the frustration, anger and hate that injustice / sin stirs up in you, thrust those enemies to God for Him to deal with”. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”Rom 12:19.
• Three: By reading and writing the scriptures. Deut 17: 18-19 “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.”
• Four: Growth in personal choices and truths, for example, deny yourself. Matt 16:24 “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” I believe much of my growth and revelations have come as a result of denying myself for Jesus the last few weeks, whether by drinking only water for a week, or deciding to spend time with Him rather than go to comic con etc.
• Five: Studying the Greek and Hebrew names of the Lord, as it leads to greater understanding into the nature and character of God.

Finally it comes to light that [Kira] had inspiration for a story about the DTS. I was intrigued by my character design that she shared. I am the Angel of Justice, and my wings work like a balance scale. She said much more, but that’s the gist of it, or at least what I remember, which is really cool, as amongst everything this past week, God’s Justices has been a central theme personally.

Now we are all getting ready to head off for our midterm outreach to Inverness on Monday.

Thank you for reading.

Blessings to you!

Prayer for outreach will be appreciated, especially that God will bring the right people across our path and help us minister and be a great image bearer for Him. The mission statement is: “Liberating Real Joy with Real Happiness.”