Leaving Babylon pg. 70
The psalmist understood very well the human condition. He knew that when humanity chose to sin in the garden, all generations that followed would be born in a state of sin. It was our inheritance from Adam. We were conceived and brought forth in a swamp of wickedness. A swamp is contained and stagnant. Its stillness makes it a prime place for the growth of all types of bacterial scum. You can smell the stench of it as you approach its borders. This is where we were born and raised. Our contamination was certain from the first day we took a breath on this fallen planet. We would sin. We have sinned and do sin without conviction, because it is our way in Babylon. We sin although it destroys us. We sinned with no hope of escape, until Jesus Christ.
Jesus our Savior extended His hand to pull us out of the swamp of wickedness and out of our state of stagnation. He came down into the swamp and lived with us, then died here for us to bring us into the River of God. He carved a path with His own blood from the swamp to the River of God. We need only to receive Him, and He will do the rest. He pulled us out and gave us the power to become the sons and daughters of God!
When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and [voluntarily] gave up His spirit (John 19:30 AMP)
Pain helps us on life’s journey in many ways. It serves to protect us. Without pain we would not know when something is wrong in the body or in life; it is our internal sensor, alerting us that something needs to be addressed or changed.
Sessions in Pain pg. (Forward xv)
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: The pain of a heart attack is brought on when a clot closes off the blood flow in a vessel and the surrounding tissues begin to die. In the same manner a “spiritual heart attack” occurs when sin closes off the precious blood of Christ in an area of our lives and that area begins to die. The “sin clot” began quietly and insidiously and grew into a blockage that cut off the redemptive blood that saves our soul. We turned a deaf ear to the counsel and Words of Christ.
Jesus continues calling to you with the remedy for the pain. He can remove the clot. This removal begins by nothing less than true repentance. With true repentance His blood will flow again and His restoration will come.
“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20 NKJV).
Picture Credits: secondscount.org, Chris Heinz Ministry
I am convinced that the most powerful and effective praise and worship comes during and after episodes of great pain.
Sessions in Pain, pg. 97
There is a place that you can grow to in Christ where you know He is Faithful. The darkness around you does not dissuade you. You praise Him through the tears holding on to nothing but your faith. This is the place of your greatest praise. This is the place of your greatest power. PRAISE IN THE PAIN!
Leaving Babylon pg. 140
A big part of Christ’s death was to bear our shame and humiliation. His death could have been quick and painless, but God chose to lay on Him our shame and humiliation through a long and torturous death, to not only save us from eternal damnation, but also deliver us from the fear, shame, and all the other maladies that come with sin. He bore our shame so that we could love Him and each other unencumbered by the humiliations of our past (Isa. 53 and Heb. 12:2).
In Christ, we learn that His love covers the faults in us and our brothers and sisters. We can forgive them, and we can forgive ourselves. We can be free to release our hearts to love again in the security that Christ loves us, always and forever. Our part is to always keep Him as our first love.
We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19 ESV).
Leaving Babylon pgs. 138-139
Adam and Eve’s children have become more estranged from each other. Each has forgotten what God called them to be to each other. The divorce rate today is at an all-time high. Today many choose not to marry but to live together and have children without any binding commitment to each other. The fear of loving each other at that level overwhelms them, so they avoid it all together. Children grow up never knowing what it is to live under the security of a parental marriage covenant. Children grow up in the atmosphere that Dad or Mom may or may not be there tomorrow. They can just walk away or move out without any binding responsibility to them. The children of Adam and Eve are basically on their own, so they have made up their own rules of survival and developed their own coping strategies—strategies that feel good for the moment but will eventually consume them. Today, we see more and more of our youth consumed in lies, drugs, sex, and heinous acts of violence. Many of them are behaving with no understanding of love, mercy, or peace. They are driven by an anger that they cannot explain. Some, in their hunger for commitment from someone or anyone, pledge themselves to gangs, to cults, and, in some cases, to the occult.
What they need to know is that Someone is committed to them, and that Someone does love them unconditionally. We are beings that need nothing less than this. Without that critical element in our lives, we become fearful and angry beings. Without love, we are vulnerable to its opposite, hate.
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 nlt)
When we ask God for anything, I believe He looks at several things, such as our attentiveness and the focus of our request. The degree of these attributes tells Him of our hearts’ desire toward what we ask, our love and intention to care for what we ask for.
Sessions in Pain, pg. 189
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: Sometimes what we have asked God for and received becomes old or weary to us. But even on the hard days God expects you to keep you vows to Him – to love what He has entrusted to your care. He is faithful who promised as you commit the gift to Him.
Crushed in soul, Hannah prayed to God and cried and cried—inconsolably. Then she made a vow: Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, If you’ll take a good, hard look at my pain, If you’ll quit neglecting me and go into action for me
By giving me a son,
I’ll give him completely, unreservedly to you.
I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline (1 Samuel 1: 9-11 The Message Bible).
Guarding your heart requires daily checks with the Holy Spirit. Watch out for the words that you speak and the thoughts that you think: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). God stands ever present as your strength and your Redeemer as you choose to speak His Word and meditate on Him. Sessions in Pain, pg. 167
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: Of all the warnings given to humanity 
none stand more important than this, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23 NLT).
Many times well-meaning people will enable someone’s debilitation because they fail to be in tune with the heart and will of God concerning a situation. God will make us people of wisdom if we learn to consult Him in all matters. Do not be directed by your flesh, but by the Holy Spirit. Sessions in Pain, pg. 110
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: Someone once told me, “whatever inspires you will control you. If your emotions inspire you, your emotions will control you, but if the Holy Spirit inspires you the Holy Spirit will control you.” Being a person of wisdom is as simple as asking for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
“Now therefore, O sons, listen to me,
For blessed [happy, prosperous, to be admired] are they who keep my ways. Heed (pay attention to) instruction and be wise,
And do not ignore or neglect it.” (Proverbs 8:32-33 AMP).
It should be made clear that tragedies can often operate like a double-edged sword, cutting both the wounded and the one who inflicted the wound. For the one who has inflicted the wound, shame and guilt can create a wound in his heart and lead this person to respond by covering up this wound. The result of this covering up is always the same: growing emotional turmoil which pervades the soul like a vicious infection. It affects every part of our lives, leading to dysfunction in many areas of our interaction with others.
Sessions in Pain pg. 217
Author’s Comments: Dysfunction is born out of a mind infected with painful memories. What a tragedy to keep living with these burdens of your past as the blood of Christ is available to cleanse your soul and clear your mind. In this new year step out of this turmoil, lay all of your mental, emotional, and stressful baggage at His feet and have a year full of peace, joy, love and clarity of thought. Have a Clear Year!
Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life] (2 Corinthians 15:17 AMP).
Leaving Babylon pg. 142
Before Christ, we failed to love others as we should because there was a lack in our own hearts. We processed our love for everyone through conditions and personal profits. We loved to get but not give. From the time we took our first breaths on earth, our cries were to get. If our hearts turned to giving to others, it came later after we processed their worth or value to us. We give, but only if we are acknowledged for it. It is the rare heart that gives in secret, that loves purely for the sake of love.
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: It is beautiful how the First Gift of Christmas was presented to us quietly and humbly in a manger. He was a Gift given by God purely out of Love. It is interesting that even old St. Nick is depicted as coming at night when everyone is asleep; giving in secret. I pray that the Lord will help us to develop that rare heart, that gives simply because of Love.
Such hope [in God’s promises] never disappoints us, because God’s love has been abundantly poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5 AMP).
