Fit For The Burn Pile

If I am not encouraging people to go deeper with Jesus Christ, to seek Him in His fullness, then everything I’ve ever written or done in Jesus’ Name is useless and vain. It is trash which is only fit for the burn pile.

We serve Christ to the utmost when He uses us to ignite a hunger for Him within others—when what we say or do for God awakens people to their lack, rather than satisfies them with the illusion of their own fullness. We must never teach God’s word in such a way that gives people the notion that they are made right with God because of their adherence to a certain teaching. Our teaching must only draw people’s minds to a deeper understanding of their salvation and their Savior. The Gospel of Jesus Christ emphatically teaches that we are made right with God because of what Christ did on the cross and that we are made acceptable to God because of our faith in Jesus Christ, plus nothing else (Rom 3:22-26; 5:1,2). And our subsequent, necessary obedience to the laws of God is only and ever because of Christ being formed in us, and our ever-lessening acquiescence to “self”—all due to the power of God Who works mightily within us (Col 1:28,29).

All doctrine and theology must pass through the lens of Jesus Christ, as the Head of His Church—He is Master, Shepherd and ultimate Teacher (Col 1:17,18). Teaching His word without His heart only serves to harm the sheep and confuse them as to the true voice of the One Who calls them (John 10:3,4). Our job as servants of the Lord is to be used by Him to draw people to Him, not to provoke division in the Body. Jesus is the One Who divides the sheep from the goats (Matt 25:32), His angels are the ones who divide the wheat from the tares (Matt 13:39), but we preach Jesus Christ as Lord (2 Cor 4:4-6).

The Body is not unified because we teach Scripture or preach righteousness. The Body is unified because we preach Jesus Christ. The Body reaches unity in the faith through knowledge of the Son of God; the fullness of His Body is reached when we attain to the “full measure of the stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13). Do you understand brothers and sisters? Our ordained commission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, teaching them all He commanded (Matt 28:19). And first and foremost, He commanded that we believe upon Him (John 3:18; 5:24; 6:47; 12:44; 20:31), and that He must be lifted up to draw all men to Himself (John 12:32). Thus, it is the preeminence of Jesus Christ in our minds and lives which will unify His Body.

I do not know exactly what the days ahead hold for us, but we are in a “shaking and a tearing-asunder” of all things not of God and His Christ. Only that which glorifies His Son will stand. Beloved, this is what we must understand in this time: God hates both our religion and our sin and the only way we can be delivered from both is utter devotion to His Son, Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is the Chief Cornerstone upon which what is built will be acceptable to God. Everything else will be tossed into the burn pile.

(Col 1:28,29) We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I also labor, striving with all His energy working powerfully within me.

(Eph 4:13,14) …until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.

(Matt 13:29,30) “No,” he said, “if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

(1 Peter 2:6,7) For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.” To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”…

(Posted on Facebook 12/19/2020 Talitha Koum)

Knowing Him In The Darkness

This morning, as I prayed on the hay loft steps, I asked God to grant me spiritual eyes that I may see. After I said that, He began to minister to me about sitting in the darkness.

There have often been times when I go through things or I pray about things and I find myself saying to God, “I feel like I’m just sitting in a dark room trying to feel my way around.” I think for many of us, we can sometimes feel that we are just sitting there in the dark, praying, trusting, waiting for the slightest movement or the faintest light to break forth. But we just get that awful silence and seemingly never-ending darkness instead.

This morning, I thought back over my prayer life and marveled that so much of it seemed like I was just groping along in the dark, trusting that God was listening and that He was there with me even though I couldn’t see Him with my eyes. And then the Lord ministered to me in that very moment, that during all the time I have spent praying over the years, He was teaching me to “see” His form with spiritual eyes. I realized in that moment, that I know what His hand “feels” like. I am intimately acquainted with the “shape and feel” of it because I have held it so often in the darkness. I know His form because I have clung to it in the darkness for so long.

That is true spiritual sight—when you don’t see Him with your eyes, but you know His form in the darkness. When a thousand hands could try to pass themselves off as the Lord’s, but you forsake them all because you only know the feel of His and His alone. When a thousand voices call your name, but you hearken to only one. I can tell you this, if there were a hundred people with me in a dark room, I could easily tell which one was my husband just by the touch of his hand. And so it is with us and our beloved Lord. Once we put our faith in Him, we belong to Him and we see Him in the darkness as if we were in the light, because He is our light regardless of where we are or what we are going through.

Just like a baby knows only darkness while in the womb as it grows, yet it is surrounded by its mother the entire time and hears her voice day after day—so it is with us, as we are shaped and formed into the image of God’s Son. And just like once a baby is finally born, it knows its mother instinctively and intimately—her touch, her smell, and especially her voice—so it is with us and our beloved Lord.

(John 10:3-5) The gatekeeper opens the gate for Him, and the sheep listen for His voice. He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all His own, He goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him because they know His voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will flee from him because they do not recognize his voice.

(John 10:26-28) But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.

(Psalm 139:11-13) If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”— even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to You. For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

(Posted on Facebook 12/17/2020 Talitha Koum)

Relegating To Religion, Or Clinging To The Cross?

Jesus dealt with various wicked spirits during His ministry on earth, but the last one He tangled with on the day of His death was the religious spirit. The same one that mocked Him and spit in His face because He would not forsake the cross. 

You cannot argue with this spirit because it will argue Scripture with you nine ways to Sunday, just like the religious leaders during Jesus’ earthly ministry. It is devoid of genuine meekness, confident in its understanding and teachings and perception of religious things. It compels human beings to use God’s word to create divisions and factions, deceiving them to believe that they are teaching righteousness and serving God— when in reality, they are being used by the enemy to provoke division among believers. 

You will never be religious enough to suit them. The cross is conspicuously absent from their teaching. The focus is more on how we can be righteous by our “right understanding of this or that teaching”, rather than what it means to die in Christ, to glorify His work on the cross, and to join in His sufferings. It is subtle and deceptive, seducing us with the illusion of our own righteousness instead of our dependence upon Christ’s. It is the amassing of pupils and inculcating hope in religion, rather than pointing people to their only Savior and hope, Jesus Christ. 

Beloved, I know this may sound harsh, but I am sharing this by compulsion of the Spirit. What God wants His people to understand in this late hour is that He hates our religion. He hates the religious spirit that Christ battled throughout His ministry. It is this Antichrist spirit that led to his crucifixion— the religious spirit that is full of pride and arrogance and self-righteous certainty. The spirit that puts itself “in the place of” Christ. The spirit that people follow “instead of” Christ— religion instead of Christ, our righteousness instead of His, our works instead of His work: the cross He died upon to show us the way. 

The time is coming, and now is, that we will be called upon to make our stand. And when we do, His glory will rise upon us because it will be shown that the only thing we are standing upon, the only thing we teach and proclaim— is Him. 

(Matt 5:11-12) Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.

(John 15:26-16:3) When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—He will testify about Me. And you also must testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning... They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father or Me.

(Posted on Facebook 12/16/2020 Talitha Koum)

Desperate For A Savior

The other morning my husband found my dad’s empty meth stash. My mom has stage-4 kidney cancer and my dad has been staying with us to help us fix up a place for her to live on our property. I suspected my dad was using again, and I asked my husband to try and confirm it.

My dad is a drug addict and an alcoholic, and I swore I would never put myself in a position where I had to depend on him again. My dad left me and my mother when I was about 2 years-old. But when my mom came to live with us this past Spring, it seemed like the only option we had at the time was to ask for my dad’s help. This is real life for so many people besides me. There are people in the church who, just like me, have a parent who is a drug addict or alcoholic. Or who have children who are drug addicts or alcoholics, or siblings who are drug addicts or alcoholics. There are people in the church who are trying to overcome sexual abuse, or who are dealing with sexual abuse. This is real life on planet earth for so many.

You cannot minister to people like this by offering them their “best life now” because we aren’t looking for that. We are looking for a Savior, not a Disney-version of Jesus. We are so far beyond any cookie-cutter version of God that much of the church seems to offer nowadays. We don’t care about promises of financial prosperity or “5-steps to a happier self”. We are hungry for a real, sovereign God Who offers much needed salvation from a very broken world and a life full of hurt and disappointment. We are desperate for a God Who can reach down into the mess with a strong, sovereign hand and draw us to Himself and never let us go.

We need a God Who knows what it is like to be human. A God Who was born in a barn to a young couple who weren’t quite sure what they were involved in. A God Who has experienced real life in this broken world. A God Who knows what it’s like to be betrayed and lied to and rejected. A God Who can show us how to love those who have hurt us, because He lived it—because He was hurt by those He loved, and He loved them back anyway.

Maybe you need a God like this too. And beloved, I would love for you to know Him. His name is Jesus Christ.

(Matt 1:20-23) …an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

(Isaiah 9:6,7) For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.

(Posted on Facebook 12/14/2020 Talitha Koum)

The Muddied Path

As I walked out to the barn this morning, I only looked downward, watching my feet take each step. I never looked up to see what lay in my path ahead. When I got to a mud puddle, I stepped over it or changed direction to go around it, but I never looked up to plan my route to the barn. I just walked along, only looking at how I was walking, rather than where. 

As I walked, I thought about how I usually like to see where I am going. As I walked, I kept fighting the urge to look up and look ahead. I really wanted to look ahead and see the best path to the barn, the quickest path, that would avoid all the mud puddles. But God ministered to me in that moment that often times, when we want to look out ahead of ourselves, when we want to see where we are going so we can plan our best route, what He really wants us to do is just focus on each step. Often times, He’d rather us just stay focused on how we are walking, and simply trust that He will lead us to the “where.”

Beloved, sometimes the only thing you will be able to see is your feet. The furthest ahead you will be able to look is your next step. And perhaps you will even find yourself in front of a mud puddle— a small one you can step over, or a big one you will have to walk around. You will have to trust that even though you can’t see out farther ahead to plan your best route, God is already leading you down the route He has planned for you. And even though you may find yourself in front of some pretty deep mud puddles, God’s route is always the best route. No need for us to see out ahead. 

(Psalm 139:16-18) Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum! If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.

(Rom 8:28-31) And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

(Psalm 37:23,24) The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, for the Lord is holding his hand.

(Posted on Facebook 12/12/2020 Talitha Koum)

Dying Together

One of the most intimate things that you can experience with your spouse is to die together— to hold onto each other as you go through a trial that tries to tear you apart, but that God ends up using to shape each of you into something precious and sanctified for Himself. 

A marriage will be shown to be what it is truly built upon when it goes through something like that. When both husband and wife cling to each other as their flesh dies, as self is crucified, each refusing to let go of their beloved. As they cry out to God, “Even though you slay me, yet I will trust in You. I will not abandon this one I have called my own” (Job 13:15). 

This is a picture of us and Christ. Our relationship with Him is shown for what it is truly built upon when we encounter trials that Satan tries to use to tear us apart, but that God ends up using to strengthen our faith and shape us into something precious and sanctified. When we cling to Christ as our flesh dies, as self is crucified, refusing to let go of our Beloved, we are brought into a place of true intimacy with our Lord. 

As My husband and I laid in bed this morning and gazed at each other’s face in silence, a tear began to roll down the side of my face as I thought of Genesis 2:23, “...bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” I thought of God telling us that this is why a man leaves his father and mother to be united with his wife and they become one flesh. And in that moment, the Holy Spirit brought the weight of the reality of Christ and His church flooding into my soul. 

Jesus left His Father in heaven to become “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” with His church. To cling to His everlasting bride who has become one flesh with Him. And as we go through all sorts of trials and persecutions together, we cling to each other, crying out, “Even though you slay me, yet I will trust in You. I will not abandon this one I have called my own.”

(Gen 2:23,24) And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man she was taken. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

(Mark 10:5-9) But Jesus told them, “Moses wrote this commandment for you because of your hardness of heart. However, from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

(Song of Solomon 8:5-7) Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? I roused you under the apple tree; there your mother conceived you; there she travailed and brought you forth. Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as the grave. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all. Mighty waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, his offer would be utterly scorned.

(Posted on Facebook 12/11/2020 Talitha Koum)

Rising Up Together, Or Looking Down Alone?

There was a time in my ministry efforts for the Lord that I never prayed for anyone else’s ministry.

I was so focused on my own ministry efforts, that it was almost like I was in competition with brothers and sisters in Christ, rather than co-workers with them. About a year ago, God brought this to my attention and I fell before Him in shame. I saw the ugliness that was hidden in my heart, I saw it for what it truly was: selfishness and ambition. We can continue for a very long time with this hidden in our heart as we pursue ministry for the Lord. There are so many ways that it disguises itself. But one of the best ways to root it out, is to start praying for others to receive what you want from God.

I will confess to you, that this may sound simple, but indeed, it is not. It will crucify you in a whole new way. When you are racked with longing for a deeper understanding of God and for Him to reveal Himself to you in profound and meaningful ways, and then God tells you to pray for someone else to have your very heart’s desire….well, there is an excruciating death that takes place. But what we must understand is, that is the very answer to our prayer. The answer to our prayer to have a deeper understanding of God and for Him to reveal Himself to us in profound and meaningful ways, is to walk in the very steps of Abraham up to the top of Mount Moriah as he willingly offered up his heart’s desire back unto God. Believing, in faith, that such a death to himself would only lead to a greater intensity of relationship with God.

I can’t really put into words why it was so difficult for me to pray for others to know God and be used by God to the same degree that I was asking to know Him and be used by Him. Fear, jealousy, envy, selfishness? I don’t really know. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wanted people to know God deeply, but there was always a part of me that wanted to know Him just a little bit better….”Oh Lord, I prayest that thine people would knowest You and I thank You for allowesting me to knowest You just a little morest than they…”

But here is the truth that Christ wants His people to understand: our equality is only found in our vulnerability. As long as any of us try to stand just a little higher than the other, the valleys are not filled and the mountains and hills are not made low (Luke 3:4,5). The way of Christ is for us to lay down our life for our friends, to truly kneel down in the dirt as we tenderly wash their feet. This doesn’t mean that He expects us to rescue each other from our trials or to fix each other’s problems, but to pray for each other to know Him, just as we long to know Him. To pray for each other to be brought to maturity, just as we seek to be brought to maturity. To pray-- with genuine longing-- for others to be used by Him, just as we long to be used by Him.

(John 15:12-14) This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.

(John 13:14-16) So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you. Truly, truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

(Matt 20:25-28) But Jesus called them aside and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their superiors exercise authority over them. It shall not be this way among you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

(Isaiah 40:4,5) Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

(Posted on Facebook 12/10/2020 Talitha Koum)