❤Ring of Fire Ministries Broadcast Transcript ~

The Severity of the Lord!

Good Morning Blessings – thank you for joining me today on this ROF Ministries Broadcast.  It is so uplifting to be able to gather together in love of Jesus and seek Him as one.

It has been a rough road the past week or so for myself and many of you… The Holy Spirit just keeps reminding me how “Jesus is holding us in the palm of His hand.”  And there is so much to this… as it relates to where His scars are, once bleeding and binding Him to His cross of suffering – which are now healed, painless and only a reminder that it was His friends that did this to Him and yet… He loves them so.  Many of us have scars too, especially from those we love and yet, the Lord has healed us – these scars remind us of His love He poured into us, knowing because He first loved us – we too can love all, especially those who inflict us with pain.

There is one thing about being inflicted with pain by those you hold dear… You learn very quickly to not inflict pain upon another.  You learn to be slow to speak, that mercy is victorious over judgement every single time and love covers a multitude of sins.  Our eyes are also opened up to the fact that for those of us who have been forgiven of much, forgive much and it is through pain… We are clothed in humility with a softened heart of gratitude for what Jesus has done for us, praying He will do it for all lost souls in the World who are so desperately in need of a savior, whether they know it or not.

The word the Lord gave me for today is:  SEVERITY…  As in the severity of the Lord.  He is really intense, isn’t He?  He kept whispering that word to me and I was pleasantly surprised when I actually found it in His word – lol – not to question Him, but I often question myself not always knowing if it is His still voice overshadowing my own.  In this case it was His voice, thankfully or I wouldn’t be sharing it today.  The verse is in Romans 11:22 which reads:

Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

It seems like everyone in the World is fully willing to seek, receive, believe in and cheer for the goodness of a Maker.  But what about the severity of our Lord on High?  To love Him is to know Him and to know Him means you receive the fullness of Him – goodness and severity.  One of the worst things we can do as a believer is water down or tamper with the truth, His truth and His word.  It truly is scary how lightly people within the church take the majesty and ferocity of our Father, which is indicative of just how we are in the end of days, having mixture rule the day – where there is no fear of God in the land, crossing over into His church.  In Greek the word “severity” means, sharpness, to be rough and aggressive in removing something which does not belong or abruptly severing ties. 

I cannot tell you how extreme the warning in my spirit is for those who justify and ignore sin, claiming the goodness of the Lord, in which the Lord called being blind in part by one’s own conceits… or rather, thinking God is similar to them in thinking or reacting to hidden sin.  He is not.  He sees everything, He knows our thoughts and the intentions of our hearts – which condemn us even if we do not carry out the deed.  If these words offend and make you want to bristle, all I ask is for you to remember them and keep them for a day in which they will be demonstrated.  The truth is always being demonstrated in our lives – and since the Father cannot lie, anything which does not align with Him, will be removed by Him or repented of by our broken hearts.  And that day is different for everyone, all I can say is – I’ve had both and it is much easier to repent of our own accord, than have the Father intervene in His severity.

So for now… I am going to leave that right there… We may come back to His severity one day, but for now I don’t want to choke anyone on meat, while I rest in the fact we plant seeds, sometimes water them but only the Lord can give the increase of His truth seed sown in our lives. 

Truth… boy is that ever a touchy subject these days, isn’t it?  Right before my betrayal a couple weeks ago – everything I heard and everywhere I went – the Lord just kept speaking that word to me – “truth”…  I see now why – He was getting ready to reveal truth to me in a way I had not imagined.  He was preparing me for the exposing of the sinful actions and intentions of a family member’s betrayal, knowing I was nowhere near ready for the shock of it all.  And I still am not, but when the Father exposes darkness by His light – He doesn’t consult us or ask for permission – He just does it, in His timing, His way. 

I can’t discuss the details of it all because it involves my daughter and she’s a minor.  Plus, I am nowhere near being healed either, so I would mix too much heartbreak, wounds and sadness into my message.  He will one day turn this test into a testimony and I will share it then – so He gets the glory.  Any message in which Jesus is not glorified, is not worth sharing, to me anyway.  Some of you know what happened… I shared a little for prayers of healing and restoration to begin in my family.  I don’t mind if you talk about it, I am not seeking to hide evil – I just can’t speak about the details on air due to the sensitive nature of events, plus it is vile and disgusting.  My goal is to not cover up evil, but protect Shelby.  She is already receiving some backlash and she is the victim in this situation.  And I must admit, I even questioned her until the perpetrator confessed.  Anyway, I already said way more than I had planned…  It is just so unbelievably difficult, especially when both parties you’ve loved and poured your life into for many, many years do not have good intentions towards you.  So now you know why I haven’t been on air or seen lately…  We are supposed to hush until we heal… It scares me to death to let my own struggles bleed over into what we share together.

So for that reason, I am not going to go into the betrayal study that I am using to let the Lord heal me until His work is completed within my heart.  Prior to this unveiling of truth – like I said I was already studying truth, so we can proceed with that topic a little today and see where else the Lord leads us.

Aaron and I were talking about how so many people who claim to be Christians are so against “accountability…”  I mean we are literally seeing this everywhere.  It is like someone let all the rebellious dogs out…  Accountability with discipline by the Lord helps us so much – in order we know for sure where we are in our aligned placement with Him.  Accountability is His mercy, His love that keeps us tethered to Him.  It is a good thing – a really, really good thing.  His goodness and His severity are equally good, because every single thing He does is good and love based – we cannot separate His hand of placement and action upon our lives in any way from love, because God is love.  Can we please just receive this truth?

His redemptive judgment upon us now is His mercy to keep us in alignment for safety so we do not fallaway forever.

We are not appointed to His wrath, but are continually weighed and measured by His righteous judgment.  I like to call this redeeming judgments – He’s not mad, this is not the day of vengeance, He is keeping us reserved by His goodness so our consciences are not seared, where we do not feel the gravity of the weight of sin we choose to retain and carry out in our lives. 

We’ve studied a lot about how we are no longer orphans, but have been adopted into His family as sons and daughters and a piece of this is… He disciplines His children. 

Those who are not sober in the mind equal His loving hand of correction and protection with:  condemnation, rejection, unfairness, hatred, harshness, unmerciful, unloving, etc…  None of those words describe our Father do they?  No they don’t, not at all.

This probably goes without saying, but you do realize only those walking in rebellion at the time, refuse accountability.  Accountability is taking responsibility for our own actions, acknowledging our shortcomings rather than hiding them or lashing out at others to deflect from our faults.

Accountability is beautiful on a path of repentance because in our surrender we say – Lord I cannot do this without You, I am Yours, help me, cleanse me and make me whole.  If we refuse to admit something, we keep it – it stays within us, it remains.  James 4:17 says – Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.  We’ve all sinned and fallen short, many times over – but to know it is wrong and do it anyway, will bring loving judgment discipline – because we are so loved by a divine Father.

Now I am not saying we are to run around holding everyone else accountable all the time – I am saying we are to hold ourselves accountable when we know our actions go against being surrendered and obedient to the Lord.  Being accountable to the Image of Jesus, by following in His example, of reading His word as a mirror of measurement to hold up to our lives and see just how we are doing spiritually is so very freeing.  We obviously need to sweep our own back porches first…  this is not a rule thing, it is a heart thing… so its best we focus on our spiritual health more than another’s.

Now just sit tight… I am going somewhere with all this…

Holding one another accountable, if done with a heart of love is a very beautiful thing – plus it is good practice for when we meet the Lord Jesus.

Just as it is written in 2 Corinthians 5:10 – WE MUST ALL APPEAR before the judgment seat of Christ, so that EACH ONE MAY RECEIVE WHAT IS DUE FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE IN THE BODY, whether good or evil.

Not one soul is able to skip out on this face to face judgment meeting, saved or unsaved.  Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God one day – Romans 14:12

There are so many Scriptures which compliment the Body of Christ, referencing accountability… but honestly, it seems as if hardly anyone wants to delve into that truth for some reason.  It feels like to me, quite often we didn’t even know accountability was a part of our life after being saved?  And that’s okay – because we are all learning and growing and we are not held accountable for the truth which has not been revealed to us – Jesus prayed forgive them for they know not what they do… but some of us know something is wrong and do it anyway… So we must hold ourselves accountable, hold others accountable or the Lord will intervene in order to not lose one of His own and He will hold us accountable, which its more perfect when He does it, but it hurts a lot more too because it is perfect severity…lol… If that makes sense?  For some reason we seem to run farther away from discipline than we do evil or the Lord…It must be in our human nature to avoid discipline at all costs, reminds me of my kids…  Aren’t we all such silly children?  When we do not perceive the Father loves us like He actually does, we will perceive discipline as condemnation when in truth He is returning us back to His own embrace.  He is actually breathing upon us a desire for repentance as time draws to a close – He desires to gather us together and cover us in His love while exposing our multiple sinful flesh ways.  It is only through our willful sin we can be put to an open shame via consequences to our actions and Jesus is calling us to come up higher than that through redemption.

The end time harvest messengers will continually have repentance on their lips, as they are sent out to prepare the Bride for the coming of the Lord.  These messengers will have such an overflowing pure love to draw all unto the Lord through guidance, correction and encouragement – having love of the whole truth. 

Since so many get hung up on condemnation… let’s read it in the Bible.

John 3 talks about why Jesus came, to not condemn the World but to save it but here is the clincher you must BELIEVE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE A LIFE IN SIN once receiving Jesus, to not live a life in sin.  If we do not believe this truth then we are already condemned. If you see Him abiding in you as light that gets rid of darkness within… then that is exactly the life you shall walk out, overriding preferring to walk in darkness. 

Vs 19 in John 3 says – And this is the condemnation – you ready?  I am getting ready to read to you what the condemnation many feel is and why they feel condemned…  here we go…

Vs. 19 – And this is the condemnation, the light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather the light because their deeds were evil.

• They preferred – chose to do evil over good…  so they felt condemned – not by our words or the words of the message but why?  Because the light of Jesus has come into the World.  So what condemns evil?  Light.  And just like that – you don’t even have to say a thing…

Vs. 20 – For everyone that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, so that his deeds are reproved.

• Oh my this is good, thank You Lord…  anyone who does evil avoids light so their darkness remains in tact, hidden and unseen – because when YOU SHINE… their darkness is reproved/revealed. 

Vs. 21 – But he that does truth comes to the light so that his deeds may manifest that they are performed in God.

• Oh my goodness, someone ought to be jumping out of their seats… Coming to the light, the darkness in us is burnt up/consumed/ gone… so that… it is no longer I who live, but its Jesus’s brilliant light – we become His hands and feet… we decrease, He increases… We are dead, being risen together in Him… We are made whole, we go and sin no more… we stop eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and instead eat of his flesh/drink of His blood and are healed from every unclean thing as He is our daily bread, BECAISE THERE IS NO CONDEMNATION TO THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST… Wake up family – you hear this?  You only FEEL CONDENMEND WHEN — you are not abiding in Him, when you willfully sin, run away from the light, choose darkness over light and so forth because sin makes us unwhole…  Wholeness is only attained while abiding with Jesus, so that we seek nothing else outside of Him to be complete.  When He fulfills, no sin is sought out to fulfill our desires anymore.

I am telling you someone is going to get free today… You were once a sinner saved by grace, but NOW YOU ARE A SAINT… As a man thinks so is he or she…  So if you choose to think you are a sinner – you are gonna walk out the life of a sinner BUT, BUT… If you believe you were once in darkness, but are now a child of light you will walk out the life of a saint and you know what happens when that happens, don’t you?  You no longer thirst and hunger to sin, but for righteousness – then you eat truth, then you grow and grow bigger and bigger in your faith and soon… you love the offered repentance of the Lord which keeps you on the straight and narrow.  You cannot ever be fully delivered of a sinful desire you have until you hate it.  Until you embrace the truth that even touching the fruit of that tree is forbidden, you will be tossed to and fro on a sea of ups and downs of endless waves of torment and condemnation and guilt….  Remember, who the Lord sets free is free indeed.

We just believe we are a sinner by the carnal mind, however the spirit knows we are a saint… A sinner is actually who we used to be, now we are a Saint who repents several times a day if necessary – what’s that called?  Washing our robes, making them white… Praise the Lord.

My Lord, how did I get off on that?  I was talking about accountability… oh well.

For the record… about my ordeal, we have chosen at this time to not utilize the legal process, while dealing with our pain we are trying to teach Shelby about boundaries, that she has a voice and that forgiveness does not mean letting that person close enough to harm you again.  It’s a never ending process and balancing act for her to understand we are not covering evil, but protecting her in a lasting way she cannot see at the moment.  She doesn’t really get it yet, but she will.  I just thought I should mention that because of the whole accountability topic – accountability is not vengeance or making someone pay… it is about truth revealed so someone is reconciled back to the Lord.

Anyway… let’s go over some Scriptures I pulled out so we can apply the Word into our own lives regarding accountability.

Matthew 12:36
“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.”  Our careless words we speak are recorded and are never blotted out – we haven’t faced judgement day yet, have we?  On that day we will be held accountable.

Jeremiah 17:10
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”  We are rewarded by the intentions in our hearts by how we react when our minds are tested, our actions are measured and produce upon the Earth through us – what we receive back from the Lord is the exact same of what we released upon the Earth.

James 3:1
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.  That is scary… those who serve, are continually measured, judged and held accountable with greater strictness.  I said its scary – but I don’t run away from it.  I just keep it continually in the back of my mind all the time to hold myself accountable to the ways of Jesus the best way I know how and repent when I fall, openly even.

Hebrews 13:17
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.  When we lead others, best make sure you are not leading them into a ditch – we have precious cargo, souls who Jesus loves and we all lead someone sometime and will give account to the Lord if we did so in a Godly, honest and pure way.

Hebrews 4:13
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. There no hiding anything from the Lord, we may run from accountability to others – but it is impossible to do so with Him.

Ezekiel 33:8
“If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.” A lot of people use this to slay others or to falsely excuse evil and sin… I am not going to add to or take away from this Scripture – I know we like to play dumb sometimes so we don’t have to be obedient, but the Word is simple enough a little child can follow it.  You all are so smart – you know when and how to obey the Lord and if you are told to warn someone, do it and if you make a mistake you, yourself will get a spanking bc just as we are to train our children up – our Father does the same with His. 

Galatians 6:1
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. So by these instructions part of the restoration part of any of us often includes someone who loves Jesus enough to in a gentle spirit come to us when we are doing something the Lord calls a transgression – an act that is not good, that may hurt others but especially ourselves.

Ephesians 4:25
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Speak the truth… it would be a falsity wouldn’t it to not to ignore an evil act?  It seems like much of that is what has gotten us where we are today, so much rebellion in the World because the inhabitants have been more tolerant of sin in their own lives.

Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. This is beautiful… to have praise be on your lips with a grateful heart, while at the same time teaching and holding one another accountable to the Words of Jesus. 

Luke 17:3
“Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” Most Christians don’t like to live this verse, let alone walk it out… I am not going to add anything to it myself – I will just say, Jesus said when you correct a brother, if he repents, forgive him.  If you are one who does not accept this word, please work that out with the Lord.  I know what He has shown me, which is to not deviate from His instruction and only apply the good parts.

James 5:16
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. I love the promise of this Scripture, don’t you?  We all need healing, some internal, some fleshly and most of us have a mixture of both…  When we confess our sins/faults to one another and we pray together before the Lord – we are healed.  There is always such hope and promise when we do as we are instructed.  Confessing our sins, rather than covering them up is such a healing process.  It is when we humble ourselves in such a precious way and are broken before the Lord, we are well on our way to cleansing and being made whole.

So we have learned that holding one another accountable is not passing sentence on the sinner to keep them in chains, but used as a redemptive tool in that they see just how much they need Jesus as Lord and Savior…  It is purposed to deliver and redeem, so we are aided to go and sin no more in that area.  Accountability is for the goodness and growth to freedom in Jesus of the other person and ourselves.  To lift them up – not cast them down.  It is the Jesus way of instruction for all the Lord’s children, so our lives and souls are prosperous.

Let’s pray ~

Heavenly and merciful Father, we come before You today and ask You to forgive us for all wrong doing, we ask that You help us to not hold wrongs against anyone, but rather be used in such a precious love way, that whoever you place on our paths are free to just come clean, be healed and be made whole by the loving touch of Jesus.  It is our prayer that we hold nothing against anyone, in that You hold nothing against us.  We remember just how Jesus saved us and washed us clean and have such faith to believe if He can do this for us, He can do this for anyone.  We also ask for forgiveness for unrighteously judging or harming anyone who has hurt us by holding onto pain that Jesus has healed us from, whether that be yesterday or forty years ago.  We ask You Lord for a divine intervention for all those who have despitefully used us, knowing they are broken too.  We forgive, release and ask You to bless them in mighty ways for the Glory of Your Name.

Lord we ask that You continue to break any rebellion within us that would drive us to resist Your severity of loving chastisement.  Give us a sober mind in place of carnal thinking so we see Your loving embrace and guidance is for Holy fruitfulness in our lives, not for our demise.  We cannot thank you enough for Your ever reaching and never ending patience with us as we learn and we grow to bloom into an authentic follower of Your Son Jesus, who set the perfect example before us to follow after.

Thank You Father for Your nourishing and rich written word, which leads and guides us, corrects and keeps us on the straight and narrow path.  All Your commands and instructions are to keep us safe and secure until the day we return to our Heavenly Home to be one with You again.  Help us Lord to see that You are good, that your commands are not for condemnation, but for restoration.  Heal all the hearts Lord who have been judged harshly by religious zealots and conspiracy theorists and the like… Remove the scales from all eyes, while stirring up a hunger and thirst for truth alone.  Thank You Father for Jesus, our daily bread, who is enough, our search is over now, we have found the One Who our soul loves and it is Him.

It is for Your great honor Father we pray together in this ROF family that Your Name and Jesus’s Name be glorified through us all the days of the rest of our lives.  Amen,