Steady On, Forerunner...

Steady on, forerunner

The challenges of being a forerunner can sometimes seem to outweigh the rewards. But we are only overcome by our challenges when we break gaze with the eyes of fire that fuel our strength and resolve; when we break connection with the Heart of Heaven that provides our confidence, affirmation, and provision. One nano-second of broken gaze in this rough terrain, and the torrents of all the challenges present themselves with puffed up chests, yelling loudly that you will never make it, and attempting to overtake your courageous heart with doubt of purpose. 

He is our portion, our reward, our strength. He is always faithful, kind, and good. We stand unshakable and immovable in this. 

So in your moments of doubt and discouragement, lock your gaze again with the One who has all the strength and provision you could hope for and more. 

The road has been long, but in its length we have seen all the goodness of God overtake darkness. We've seen miracles on this road, far from the sight of the masses. We have learned boldness and strength and how to rise victoriously. We have learned to teach and to listen and love. We have stopped and poured our hearts out for the one. Let's never stop doing what we do. Never stop blazing a trail; even though some days, a lot of days, it has felt more like taking a pickaxe to brick and we haven't moved an inch. If we look into His heart, we will see the road we've made for others to follow. It's there. It's brilliant and beautiful and waiting for the brave and hungry to traverse it. And just up over this mountain we are climbing is the morning sun. So, look up and steady on. 

Forerunner, you are not forgotten. And your King is filled with zeal and joy to move on your behalf.

So, get ready for the thunder.

Because it's coming.

And you get to bring it.  

#wearethebringersofthunder #steadyonwarrior

© Elisabeth Cooper 2018

Thoughts on Difficulty and the Increase of His Government in Us

When life decides to be unrelenting in pressure, sneak attacks, and opposition, it helps to remember a few things: 

•We win.

•Defeat is not an option.

•God is good, He is always faithful. 

•Love is the most powerful force in heaven and on earth. 

•There are lesser realities seeking to set themselves up as counterfeit governments in our lives, and to rule us from the place of power we give them. #getoutofthematrix 

These days, I have had to declare these things to my heart on a daily basis...sometimes moment to moment. It’s been a rough couple of years, and the last few months have been more brutal than I bargained for. But here’s the bottom line: joy cannot be stolen without my permission. Promises cannot be abandoned and left on the side of a bumpy road without my consent. Are we weary? Yes. Have our hearts been broken and discouraged at times? YES. Are we stopping? No. Is our joy absent? No. Do we understand? No, we don’t. But we do understand that fact are facts; and that what we are experiencing is, in all truth, inferior reality at its core. A counterfeit government which seeks to convince us into buying into its false framework over our lives. 

Go sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here. 

Again, we win. Defeat is not an option. Our God is good, He is always faithful. And His Love is the most powerful force in heaven and on earth. So we stand. We love. We laugh. We cry. We believe. We move forward. And we live in victory. We agree with the government of God in our lives; a government of order and justice where all the wrong things are made right. Chaos, calamity, sickness, etc. are counterfeit governments which pose as reality and deceive us into believing we are powerless over them. 

I think one key to walking through difficult times, and cooperating with the increase of His government in us through them, is remaining.

Remain connected: to Him (abide) and others; At least a few people. Sometimes in times of difficulty it’s nearly impossible to keep up with everyone in your Rolodex (Do those exist anymore? They were cool, we should bring them back if they don’t. #vintage). Remain in the knowledge and experience that you are loved. Intentionally baptize yourself in the love of God. It never fails, remain there. Let others love you as well. surrender to love in every way you are able. 

 Remain in the rest and peace of God. Rest is a weapon. Wield it as such.

Remain gracious. Even when we feel broken and unable to offer anything, the world is not less in need of the sweetness of your spirit poured out in it...even in the midst of your broken bits of life. It doesn’t have to look like a party all the time. It doesn’t even have to look happy, but happiness and joy are two separate things...joy can exist even in the most broken places. Joy supersedes emotion. You don’t actually have to say a word to change the atmosphere or pour love into it. We need only expand our hearts over it in love (blog on expanding our hearts coming soon). The world changes when love soaked people pour their genuine and authentic selves into it; in the midst of the battle, in the midst of difficulty love can still win if we let it. We change when we keep ourselves in the healing oil of God and allow it to work in the midst our sadness. I want to give this to the world; This peace that resides in the healing oil of God. In the middle of heartache and brokenness it remains, it works, it flows, it heals. 

Remain kind. Remain generous. Let your heart remain, and even become more generous; more generous with beautiful words and encouragement, more generous with love and support, more generous with your resources. In love and giving, there is life. And in the middle of what seems like the opposite, we have the opportunity to create life, to banish hopelessness in our hearts and the hearts of others, and tear down counterfeit governments seeking to convince us of false realities. 

I’ll be honest, some days I do well to simply remain in the knowledge that I am loved. However, when I can do that, it opens the door for the rest to come in and set up camp, to have the government of God established and increased in my life...the government of peace, generosity, strength, kindness, love, justice, gentleness, mercy, joy. So I declare that the increase of His government and peace will know no end in me today. I agree with the reality of His victory, love, and promises over my life. We must live in this place in the middle of challenge and difficulty. It’s the only place of victory.

©Elisabeth Cooper 2017

Tune the Earth, Create the Future

Photo by: Aduro Images

Everything we see and do not see is comprised of frequency. At the core of anything, it is made of sound and light. 

There’s a principle in the science of frequency called sympathetic resonance. A good illustration of this principle is: two tuning forks designed to vibrate at approximately the same pitch. If they are within proximity of one another, when one of the tuning forks is struck it produces a sound that spontaneously causes the second tuning fork to produce the same sound as if the second fork was physically struck as well. The sound wave from the first fork actually does strike the second fork, causing the second to resonate responsively to the tune of the first. This sympathetic resonance occurs because both forks contain similar vibrational characteristics, which allows energy transfer from one to the other. When two objects have similar vibrational characteristics that allow them to resonate at the same frequency, they form a resonant system. 

Now let’s consider the fact that we are made in the image of God, therefore we are comprised of, and are capable of “similar vibrational characteristics”. When we abide in Him, we put ourselves in the middle of the sound of everything He is, and our beings are tuned to the frequency of Him, of who He made us to be. As we abide in Him, we resonate with the sound of His heart. We resonate with His voice and His desires for us, for others, for all creation. We become the sound. We become “tuning forks” to bring the earth into the resonant system of Love, Truth, Healing, Justice, Grace, Mercy, The Miraculous, Beauty, The Future. 

In union, in oneness with Him, our capabilities go beyond mere human capabilities. We become Kainos; the unprecedented ones, something like the earth has never seen, heard, felt, known. We become the physical resident resonance of Him in the earth to call all creation to enter into the frequency of Love. 

We need to rise up and tune the earth (and all creation, but we gotta start somewhere). We need to enter into the resonant system we were created to live in and, consequently, create the resonant system on the earth we were created to create! Go deeper, get higher, let’s apprehend the fullness that Jesus has given us in Union with Him. 

We're tomorrow people. Our lives sing the songs of the future to create it. So let’s create it. Let’s create the beauty of His heart in the earth, the worship of all the nations in the earth, the goodness of God in the earth. Let’s become the sound. Let’s go inside the thunder of everything He is and become it. We are the bringers of thunder, but we must enter into oneness with The Thunder in order to become it. 

The sound of Him, the light of Him, the colors of Him; we were created in this image. Let’s get resonating. Let’s get tuned and start tuning.

© Elisabeth Cooper 2017 

#gettuned #tunetheearth #becomethesound #bringthethunder #sympatheticresonance #resonantsystem #mysticprayer  

On Withholding Blessing

By withholding blessing from those who have hurt us, we are essentially saying we want to hold some power over the outcome of the situation, or process, of the person(s) life we are withholding blessing from. 

We are saying, "We don't trust you, God, in Your ability to bring about good for this person, bring them to repentance, and still get justice and healing for me." This is a paupers mindset because it stems from the belief that there isn't enough power, love, grace, etc. in the heart of God to make all the wrong things right. So we withhold blessing as our "contribution" to the process in order to see to it that we are satisfied with what we think should be the outcome. 

However, if we understand blessing and the heart of God, we would never withhold blessing; For it is the very thing that avails their life and ours to the glory of kindness which brings repentance, forgiveness which brings freedom, and love which brings justice. It is one of the very things that releases God's best over their lives and ours.

We must gain a proper perspective regarding blessing those who have wronged us. Blessing means going inside the wisdom and love of God to understand and partner with all the rightness and justice and goodness of His heart; For all parties involved! 

Blessing, like forgiveness, has nothing to do with approval of actions or permission to hold a place in your life again. It has everything to do with love that runs deeper than any wrongdoing, any hurt, any betrayal. His love is deeper than the deepest wound, and His love lives in us. 

So, bless those that have wounded you, betrayed you, and hated you. Love them with the everlasting love of The Great King that courses through your veins and brings justice and healing. It is precisely by this letting go, this releasing, that we find we are released as well. We learn how to love deeper within this place. We learn the cogs of the wheels of love are greased, in great part, by blessing. Bless, bless, bless...and do not withhold your blessing. You'll find the beauty of God here, I promise you. 

© Elisabeth Cooper 2017

Love, justice, and judgment...

We often perceive that love and mercy must be separate, at least in part, from justice and judgment. Justice and judgment have been misconstrued and misunderstood through lenses of fear, misunderstanding, and lack of knowledge of the heart of God. Justice and mercy cannot be separated. Love and judgment are partners. The justice of God IS the mercy of God, and visa versa. 

Sometimes we are more comfortable with the word justice than we are with judgment. But judgment from the God of Love is not to be feared. There is no fear in love. Yet, He is the Just Judge. Justice is the establishment of the heart of God and His judgments are the means by which it is carried out. They cannot be separated and are to be celebrated and ushered in by US! 

The cross was the greatest judgment ever pronounced. It was (from before the foundations of the world were laid), and remains (for all eternity), the greatest act and definition of justice. It is the establishment of justice.

The justice of God makes all the wrong things right and all the dark things light. The judgment of God on sickness is healing, and that is the justice of God. The judgment of God on separation from love is salvation and adoption into His heart and family forever, and that is the justice of God. The judgment of God on addiction and bondage is freedom and grace, and that is the justice of God. 

So when we call for the justice of God, we are calling for the joy, love, mercy, and grace of God to come and make all the wrong things right. 

Love, justice, and judgement cannot be separated. And we get to partner with Him to bring His heart into this world and break chains, bring reconciliation, healing, and salvation to the lost and hurting. We get to call forth the judgment and justice of God to heal lands and nations with the absolute and unshakeable love of Jesus. 

If your theology around judgment and justice involves fear, it may be time to take a look at the glorious love of God and rethink so we can agree with His love in establishing it on the earth to the fullest measure. 

It's time to ring the bells of justice!

© Elisabeth Cooper 2017