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).
You must see your material possessions as merely tools to be used for God’s divine purposes. Does God want to bless us? Absolutely! But always set your heart on the ‘Blesser’ and not the blessing.
Sessions in Pain pg. 40
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: During this Christmas Season I invite you to walk in the Spirit of the Blesser. Bless someone who you would not naturally look to bless – the difficult person at work, a stranger, a hurting family, or the unusual neighbor. This is the heart of Christmas in that while we were yet sinners Christ came… for us.
Leaving Babylon pgs. 64-65
Overall, human beings are becoming more tired, weary, and depressed, but Babylon does not care, for her ultimate goal for us is separation from our Creator and the peace of His Holy Spirit. She hates when we pray. She hates when we begin to believe that God does love and care about us. Leaving her takes faith. To live by faith must become our new lifestyle if we are to survive the coming days. The foundation of this faith lifestyle is in God’s Holy Spirit. He does exist, He does love you, and He does want to be involved in your life. Your sin is not too great for Him to not forgive. The Holy Spirit always has been and always will be the one true Comforter of the human heart!
But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. Psalm 3:3 niv
God also has an agenda. His ultimate agenda is to bring you to Himself in an intimate relationship. God’s agenda includes you spending eternity with Him. His passion for you compels Him to carry out His agenda for you above all else; nothing else matters to Him except you with Him.
Sessions in Pain, pg. 111
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: You with Him, this has been God’s agenda ever since 
sin entered the lives of humanity. He would leave heaven, walk on water, take a beating, and die on a cross, just to bring you with Him…to heaven.
Leaving Babylon pg. 143
King David talked about this awakening in his 121st psalm. The first verse is actually a question…I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help?” In that time, the people were worshipping idols, and they would place these idols outside on hills as a symbol of their gods being in a heightened position. David asked a rhetorical question concerning these idols, “Will I lift up my eyes to the hills for my help?” We can also ask this question like this, “Will I look to people, money, position, and human power for my help?” Just like Israel of that day, we look to people and our idols for our help.
David answered this soul-searching question with a declaration that his help comes from the Lord! He would reject all of the idols of his day and look to the Lord for his help. He continued with the proclamation that God would preserve and protect his life and his destiny. The Lord would protect his work. The Father would keep him day and night, because He never sleeps. He ends this psalm with the words that God would keep him forevermore! Our curses are broken, and we can live and love in the security and peace of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
forevermore.
Words of Life spoken with a heart full of faith and determination blaze the path to overcoming. Speak truths from the Word about yourself and your future. Don’t allow your emotions to control you but let faith plan your actions. Set your face like flint and speak His truth in the face of those who seek to intimidate you. Sessions in Pain pg. 164
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS: When struck against steel, a flint edge will produce sparks. As the prophet Isaiah spoke of setting or making “My face like flint” he was describing our Lord. Of all the rocks he could have chosen in this description he chose the one that produces “sparks” when struck by steel. Sparks in turn will produce a flame and then a fire! Fire purifies. The first “Flint Face” finished the work He was sent to do and…set this world on fire with the Holy Spirit! In His name may we do the same. 
“Go forth and set the world on fire.” Ignatius of Loyola
For the Lord God helps Me,
Therefore, I have not been ashamed or humiliated.
Therefore, I have made My face like flint,
And I know that I shall not be put to shame (Isaiah 50:7 AMP).
Leaving Babylon pg.160
When we observe how a drug addict is detoxified, there is a struggle before there is a release and the body is at peace. The struggle is necessary for the poison to exit the body as the flesh craves what will kill it. The body and the soul are in contention as the mind has made a decision to get the body clean. But peace will finally come.
Sin is our poison. It is often what our flesh and soul (our mind, will, and emotions) craves for. We see our entire existence through the glass of sin. Even after we come to Christ, we still struggle with the “encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us” (Heb. 12:1, amp). Our flesh and soul are constantly crying out for what it wants, so we contend with God for what we think He owes us. Trusting Him is still a distant state of mind. We want His blessing and His gifts but on our own terms, and therein lies our contending with Him.
Many believers are not yet at the place of complete trust, but be 
encouraged and keep on the journey. Day by day, from experience to experience, we come to know our God. Keep contending with God, and He will show you to this place of complete trust.
At an even deeper level than that of our soul dwells our spirit—the place where we have relationship with God. This is an area where we can also experience injury when the atrocities of life hit us hard; but this is also the area where true healing must begin. Injury to the spirit occurs when we choose to reject our relationship with God, due to physical and emotional wounds. Sessions in Pain, pg. 212
AUTHOR’S COMMENTS
The injured spirit may turn a deaf ear to God, if only for a moment, to flirt with the lie that this pain cannot be healed. It is at these times you need to hear the message from Him again:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me (the Messiah), Because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent Me to announce release (pardon, forgiveness) to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed by tragedy), to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the favor of God abound greatly].”… “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and in your presence.” (Luke 4: 18-19,21 AMP)
Leaving Babylon pg. 63
One of the greatest methods of deception that Satan uses to comfort the conscience of humanity is to convince us of the lie that God does not exist and that His Word, the Bible, is an outdated document whose principles no longer apply to contemporary man and our societies. The evil one persuades us that it is okay to cast off all restraints and do whatever feels good to us. And although we face the consequences of our poor decisions, on an individual and global scale, we fail to see the sickness and impending death of our world. Like Samson, our eyes have been plucked out as we work for Babylon.
We legalize pleasures and conveniences that destroy human societies and the world for the coming generations of human beings. In our blind arrogance, we believe we are smart and progressive in our thinking, failing to see the cliff we are headed for. An acid test that I use when I review today’s new legislations is the question, “If everyone on the planet did this act of legislation, where would human society be in a hundred years?” The chilling truth is that sometimes the answer is “extinct”! We would fail to exist as a race of beings on planet earth.
Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping (1 Corinthians 16:13-14 MSG)
