Many of us (preaching to myself here especially) have passed through much of their adult life living under the shadow of their ill thought decisions...decisions which turned out to be mistakes. And now years into the game we can be found languishing even further because of our mistaken identity...not knowing who we are in Christ, and remaining captive to the bonds of deception. I have been sooooooo long in coming through the wilderness of the flesh and in arriving into the place of commanded blessing. The journey is an arduous one and it is like being dropped of in the middle of the Sahara and having to walk back home. The canteen around one's waist has a day's supply of water and the heat and thirst are nearly unbearable. One's feet ought to be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and instead we wear our paper thin hospital slippers. I got my hospital gown on too...it kinda reminds me of the armour of God..it covers the front real well, but the back side is not all it is "cracked up to be." We are supposed to go forward and face our enemies and our fears (which is the biggest enemy) and even our resentments. Any one got a vallium?

I have just been doing my internal diagnostics lately, as I am prone to do near the end of every year...I always wonder what the next year will bring...My pastor was preaching on declaring our future last night and it was brought home again something I have known for years...that our lives are built by the words of our mouth and the desire of our heart, and we can make it or break it based upon the fragility of our actual experience which the soul and natural eye take for granted, or it can develop into a marvelous end time plan if we are so bold as to actually speak and believe the word of God, as He has spoken to us....Jer 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

My very first rhema word ever was this.....

Jer 31:17 And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own border. Jer 31:18 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [thus]; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed [to the yoke]: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou [art] the LORD my God. Jer 31:19 Surely after that I was turned, I repented; nd after that I was instructed, I smote upon [my] thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Jer 31:20 [Is] Ephraim my dear son? [is he] a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. I saw my own name instead of Ephraim and I saw it plainly...