Tag Archives: Perception

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“Miraculous” In the knowing that He hears

“WHOSOEVER believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous.

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

That he came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood.

And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.

And there are three that beareth witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

And this is the record (testimony), that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

He that hath the Son hath life; and that hath not the Son hath not life.

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the son of God.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. 

And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired (asked) of him.”   1John 5:1-15

To dig what I am getting into, please read my last post to get a better understanding of the stories I will be referencing.

I want to point out a few noteworthy aspects from the stories I used in that one to help establish how we get our hearts, and more importantly our minds in the realm of the miraculous, so that we can see the impossible becoming reality.

I also want to quickly mention that I will be going back to our verse above in my next post and continuing with the remainder of that passage, and it will be a scathing judgment post  concerning the mind-numbing abominations against God that are taking place on a whole new level, just when you think people can not possibly become more deviant, it’s like think again!

I have an unusual calling, I am a messenger and it is quite difficult at times to balance the love and mercy that Jesus has to all, as he stands waiting to forgive any who will only ask with the pronounced judgments that we set in motion long, long ago.

So here’s the deal, as I love to point out, prophets are accountable for failure to warn and pronounce given judgments.

So even if those who those warnings are sent to decides to ignore those warnings, they can never try to reason to God when they are judged that they were never told to repent.

But  at that same time God has messages for his people to encourage them and strengthen them to hold on in faith and patience    and that is exactly what this post is for.

Shew, now that that is out of the way!

We started the last post with the verse where Jesus tells us that if we can only believe, all things are possible, and yet for us mortals, that is often easier said than done.

And why is that? Multiple reason, being human, being born into a world that shapes our minds to believe only what we can see, or analyze, or is logical, probable, and in the world’s view possible. 

And all these are contrary to the Word of God, in the supernatural realm of God, which is far more real than the world we inhabit, all things are possible.

As our verse above notes, if we know that we belong to God and we know that he hears us and we know that what we are asking lines up with his Word, that he will honor that request.

And all we need does line up with hiss promises. But like if I asked the Lord for a brand-new Black Cherry ‘Vette when I have a functioning vehicle, that would not be a wise request, even though I would totally dig having one, there is no justification for asking because it would be to “consume it on my own lusts.”

However, if I had no vehicle or was in need of repair, that would certainly be something well worth requesting because as he tells us in scripture, he knows what we have need of.

If you notice in the last post all these stories were needs, food, and water, clothing, and safe dwelling, and safe passage,.

And even desperations, such as the ax head that the Lord allowed to be retrieved, the ax was borrowed and would have been a monetary obligation if lost.

And the widow who had to pay off the debts, because at that time people could be enslaved until debt was paid.

And think of the coin in the mouth of the fish to save the reputations of him and the disciples, as the one questioned did they not pay tribute, an occasion to be evil spoken of. Absolute miracles of rescue, and resurrections.

Which, Lord’s will, we will get into more of those soon also. What I want you to also notice about those stories is this, how the recipients of those wonders were no way shocked or puzzled at what they received.

Elijah is not mentioned at all as having thought it odd that the Lord had a raven brought him meat and bread twice a day,

And the widow, who actually told him that she was gathering sticks to prepare the last meal for her and her son, because she only had one meal left and then they would die, she knew they would starve to death once that meal was eaten, but think of this God had already told Elijah that he had commanded the widow there to provide for him before she told Elijah that, so God knew her heart he knew she would do what was asked of her, and Elijah had to make the request of her to set all the faith in motion for the miracle God already had planned to save this lady, her house, and feed his prophet.

It has to be requested along with the act of faith.

And faith is simply believing he will simply because you have need and you ask believing he will simply because he is God, you are his child and he loves you enough to make the miraculous happen for you or whomever you are making that request on behalf of.

before I go any farther with that, to point out a few more examples of the knowing, when the angel fed Elijah, he is not mentioned to have jumped to his feet and shouted, “What on earth! An angel!” or questioned, “Why is an angel cooking for me?”

No, he went back to sleep, no words are recorded of him even replaying to the angel when the angel spoke to him.

Because Elijah knew, he knew God and there was no need for him to question any of it because it was not odd to him, because he knew his God.

And Hagar, I have such a spot for Hagar, she really went through it and then there she was, he and her child thrown out into the desert, all the water gone, and for the second time in her life, she is visited by an angel, and again, like Elijah, she is not blew away by this angelic visit, Why? Because she knew  the existence of the miraculous.

And she rejoiced in knowing that He does live and He did see her, her tears, her affliction and heard the cried of her child.

He heard the prayers cried out on behalf of Peter and again sent a mighty angelic rescue, this time Peter not quite sure if it was real or a vision, and of course he soon discovered it was real.

I feel like God wants his chosen, you, there this world over, every nation, every kindred, every tongue, and tribe of people, to know now, at this moment, this hour, in this time, he does hear you, he does see you and all you need to do is put your faith in action with the knowledge of who he is and have that confidence that John spoke of, and know that he will deliver you and give you the desires of your heart.

But you have to get into that secret place of the Most High, this world, the devil, and even our own minds will tried to convince us that we can’t ask for certain things because it is impossible, again I tell you, Jesus said that nothing is impossible.

So if you are praying for the “impossible”, get in your prayer closet and surround yourself with the presence of the Lord, talk to him, open, honest, raw, pour out your requests and pour your heart, and praise him with songs that you feel says what your heart would sing to him.

And when you are praying for others always remember how they may be praying.

A morbid example, us praying for a miraculous healing for someone who may be terminal when that person may be praying to go home. Whose prayer do you think would take precedence?

Something else I want to point out, when you are praying for the miraculous, keep it on the down low as much as possible, Jesus makes intercession for us, the Spirit intercedes for us, that is why it is so important to have the confidence in knowing your relationship with him.

And he loves all his children, there are no favorites and you have to just let him love you and not listen to the not worthy nonsense satan tries to whisper to you, none of us are worthy, it’s not about being “worthy”, Jesus died to save us.

It’s not about worth, but if it were, Jesus felt we were worth his very life, I think it’s insulting to him for us to keep saying we aren’t worthy to receive anything from him, cause again, we will never be worthy, he just loves us, his reason for everything is because he loves us, we are the ones that have a problem accepting that.

Sometimes the less the world and the devil know about what you are praying for, the better your chance of receiving it, I know social media can be good for some things, but it bothers me when people request prayer and people who are not even saved or profess Christ are “praying” too, and I am not trying to be harsh but people can not post nasty trash, post profanities slamming others and then they are going to “pray” for the requests? Who are they praying to?

There is a reason that Jesus made everyone leave when he resurrected Jarius’ daughter, and There is a reason that Elijah took the child to his chambers when he prayed for life the enter back into him. There is a reason that Peter, also made everyone leave so that he could pray for Dorcas.

No doubt, no doubt, no doubt, can’t stress that enough, and while those who are dead obviously don’t need faith to be resurrected, those who are to be healed do.

Which brings me to my last point, healings and miracles go hand in hand with faith, and miracles and healings are also a gift, gifts must be stirred  but God also blesses his people which divine miracles and deliverances during times of need outside of that gifting, and any of his children can ask for that  and I believe receive that.

When it comes to healings, the one who does the praying has to believe in the healing and the one needs healing also has to believe in that healing.

“And there sat a certain man, impotent (without strength) in his feet, being cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked.

The same heard Paul speak who steadfastly beholding  (intently observing) him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, 

Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked.” Acts 14: 8-10

The crippled man listened, he heard and his faith stirred and Paul perceived that faith in him and they joined their faith with the belief that God would heal him and God did.

If this man had doubted, if he had listened to any voice whispering in his ear trying to dissuade him, if someone rose up and shouted, “You have never walked a day in your life! Are you seriously thinking that you are going to walk now?!” Well, he would have never walked.

It takes both, and the supernatural takes a stern disposition to seek, to believe, and to persevere until you reach that knowing and believe me when you do, you will know, and you will be amazed, and remember you can pray for the miraculous for anyone, any place, like that old song, “If we never meet again this side of heaven “but more like people you will never meet until heaven, and your prayers answered through God can truly change the world, just let God guide you, Peter is never mentioned to question Jesus as to why the coin was in the fishes mouth, it’s not our job to question, it is only our job to believe.

Blessings and Peace, Thanks for reading and sharing your time with me!

Φλογιζω NBJ 2021/ Rev. Nina Brown Johnson

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PARKING LOT PERPLEXITY- PONDERING PERCEPTION

I spend an unnatural amount of time in the parking lot of a local store.
That sounds like some kind of bizarre plea for help doesn’t it?
“Hi, I’m Nina and I like to spend my free time in this parking lot”!
Wouldn’t make me too many new friends but I have a really good reason for being outside rather than inside, and since we all have issues, this is one of mine, I could easily play the part of the lady in the commercial, you know the one where she is bowling and this cute little pink thing with big blue eyes keeps trying to drag her off to the restroom, finally she angrily declares “No! I am seeing my doctor!”.
Well, me and my bladder just hang out rather than suffer the nuisance and annoyance of having to find a restroom every three hundred feet.
That is my personal secret revealed for the day.
 Disturbing? Probably! Too much information? Surely! Needed to be divulged in order to write this post? Most definitely!
I had to tell you that so that you wouldn’t think I am just all kinds of weird (those who know me are now falling over laughing hysterically thinking BUT YOU ARE WEIRD!)
That point aside. I have learned a lot sitting there and watching shoppers and I always think about them and what their life is like and if they look weary, tired, or hurting, I always say a little prayer for them.
 I watch people interact with their kids and I watch the elderly go in and I wonder do they have enough food money.
And amazingly enough the majority of my posts have been birthed there, most of my series titles and scriptures have been jotted down while sitting in that parking lot and the death of “Eagle” hit me there and I sat and cried scribbling it all down as my family returned to try to understand why on earth I was crying.
So I think I have a special kind relationship with that place and the most astounding thought that I have taken from it is this, WE AS HUMANS, AS A MAJORITY SUFFER FROM THE TOTAL LACK OF PERCEPTION!
My view varies based on parking, and across the street in one direction is what was once upon a more prosperous time THE motel of the town, it has since became not quite so much so.
I think it is mainly rented out as housing and often I watch those that live there come and go from the grocery store.
One evening a couple had just came out and were trying to cross the road they were dressed very modestly and NO ONE would stop to offer them to cross the road and the more I watched, I could only think that maybe if they were dressed to the nines or in fine clothing, or were well-known people, like I don’t know a mayor, or doctor or someone of the sort, people would be glad to let them cross, but no, drivers felt it not worth their time to show kindness to this couple.
The other side facing the store, right in front of it, I have had the grandest of all pondering.
There is a local man,seen by many, but I am sure known by few if any.
He is for the most part mute, he is so sweet and the kindness oozes out of him, he is an older man and lives in an assisted living home just a tad to the side of the grocery, and he can communicate IF you are willing to listen with your HEART and not depend so much on ears.
So Me and Pinky, (the cartoon bladder) are once again sitting there ( because I had determined I AM NOT going to the bathroom AGAIN ) and the sweet man is out there and we wave at each other and he flashes me that sweet smile and there are several shopping carts haphazardly left here and there on the walk, so he gets them one by one and takes them back in the store and puts them in their place, he comes back and picks up some loose trash and throws it away, he then steps just inside the store to a little rack where I am so sure are the “Thrifty Nickel” or something to that effect, it is little papers that people run ads for anything imaginable to sale, I think they are actually free BUT if not some witty, knowledgeable store employee SHOULD KNOW THE PRICE ( but I guess that depends on who is trying to ask! )
He holds it up and shows it to a bag boy, who just looks zombified at the paper, as if it is a mysterious sphere floating down before him and shrugs and walks off, then the man turns to a cashier, who is obviously also brain-dead to the universal code language
 ( HELLO if you are holding it up, you want to know the price) and she brushes him off also, and he just puts it down, that beautiful smile has now faded and he walks silently away to the place he calls home.
So between pinky pulling my arm and these two geniuses I am growing a wee angry.
 Curlylocks is still outside after having ran away to avoid the man’s unspoken question,( never bothering to notice that the carts had been taken care of for HIM ) so I call him to my window and as gently and clearly as possible I said “He is asking you how much that paper is.” 
Curlylocks looks at me, by this point I have come to believe the dude may not really be a bag boy but is actually zombie doing a rather bad impersonation of a bag boy, he just says”Umm, I don’t know” and I just say “Okay” . 
By this point, I really kinda wanted to slap him upside his head and say “You know Sonny, you ain’t through living and one day that might just be you!”
Then I wanted to slap my own self! Why did I not just drag pinky out of the vehicle, tell the sweet man to hold on one minute, go buy the paper, give to him! I COULD HAVE DONE THAT!!!!
So now we have three geniuses! What is wrong with us as a society?
Why can we not hear what others are saying, even if they have no words?
Why do we hold to the old cop-out that if they needed anything THEY would ask, if they had a problem they would tell someone.
Why do we not listen with our hearts and be led by the spirit? When we look someone in the eye and that little tug inside of us tells us they have a need, why do we not ask? 
Why do we not care? Why will not go even an inch outside our zone to help another person?
How many chances have been missed to impact a life other than our own?
This did not happen in a parking lot but I have pondered it more than once, because it leaps to mind when I think of these things, so it belongs here.
My family has a friend that grew up with my parents, she is a wonderful woman and has dedicated her life to two people, Jesus, and raising her little grand-daughter, she is in her seventies and she called one evening and needed help, her back was hurting really badly and thought it was caused by her stomach, so me and my Dad took her to the ER, she was left for hours in a freezing cold room, when we did go back to see her, she said she was freezing so I asked for a blanket for her (which should have been offered ) and she told us that she had a broken back.
She had been doing yard work that week and had somehow slipped or something and didn’t think much of it but had actually broken her back.
She told me she needed to go the restroom and had mentioned that the nurses had been really rude to her, so I told her I’d go get someone.
Now this is around five in the morning, we had been there all night, ( They are in process of transferring her to another hospital better equipped for her injury) so I go to the desk, there’s the doctor and three of four nurses sitting around and I ask could someone please come help her to the bathroom, This young nurse just looks at me and says “Well, I’ve took her several times” (Yeah, there is obviously a limit on times one may need to go) I said “Well, she needs to go”  she just looks at the doctor and rolls her eyes and he said “Take her” she gets up, her nasty little attitude plain to see and I said “You do know that HER BACK IS BROKEN don’t you?”
She just looks at me and like nothing and almost smugly says “Yeah, I know” and it took everything in me not to say “Well, here’s the deal, one day this is going to come back and bite you so hard in your prissy little butt, one day you will be in her shoes.” 
But as a child of the Lord’s, I held my peace but it was hard, she was so smug, so smirky, so absolutely uncaring and cold that I truly would not want to be in her shoes, if that is how she chooses to treat wounded people she should have never became a nurse, she should not be allowed to care for a rock.
But it does beg the question, what happened to us? When did we grow so insensitive, so lacking as a society?
Well, I am sure it happened as we fell as a nation from the grace of God and without his presence and guidance THAT IS what happens to society and it is the biblical fulfillment of what is to become of people.
“Without natural affection”, lacking any common decency or courtesy, much less compassion toward our fellow human.
BUT more so as Christians we ARE to be the LIGHT in the darkness.
WE are to shine into this world and be different and to do that and to not fall victim to the infectious lack of caring and love growing cold, we must be aware of what is inside of us.
Jesus IS the master of perception! And of course HE IS WHO HE IS but as his children WE CAN PRAY for HIS PERCEPTION to be awake and alive in us.
People really didn’t have to tell him much,when he walked this earth he was so in tune to people he took it straight to the heart, he didn’t make them pour out their secrets, or wait till they begged for help, he addressed the problem and assured help was on the spot.
More often the people who need help the most are the ones who are LEAST likely to ask.
NO ONE WANTS TO FEEL EMBARRASSED  and shame has NO PLACE but satan sends it and if you are lead of God to help in a charitable way, keep it secret! 
AS much as you possibly can, again because NO ONE wants to feel embarrassed and calling attention to their plight and what you did to help will only embarrass them and make them feel worse than they would have if you had left them alone.
“Take heed that ye do not your alms (charitable deeds) before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as thee hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men, Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”          Matthew 6:1,2
So we never want to come off that way! Here’s what we want:
“But when thou doest thine alms, LET NOT THY LEFT HAND KNOW WHAT THY RIGHT HAND DOETH: that thine alms MAY BE IN SECRET: and THE FATHER SEETH IN SECRET HIMSELF SHALL REWARD THEE OPENLY”   Matthew 6:3,4
“Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask not again.
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
For if ye love them which love you, what thank (credit) have ye?
for sinners also do even the same.
And if you do good to them which do good to you, what thank (credit) have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, TO RECEIVE AS MUCH AGAIN.                 Luke 6:30-34
“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father  also IS merciful.”
“GIVE, and it SHALL BE GIVEN UNTO YOU; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. FOR WITH THE SAME MEASURE THAT YE METE (use)  withal it will be measured BACK UNTO YOU again.”                               Luke 6:36,38
So lets all do better, let’s make eye contact, pray for that perception and TAKE CHANCES and ASK when we feel someone has a need and remember this isn’t always about money, it can be many things, even just someone who will listen for a moment and a little help getting something off a store shelf.
And if they say “No, Thanks” what have you lost???? You have offered and God is still very pleased with that!
 But let’s please not continue to look through people as if they aren’t even there and never, ever over them, like what happened with the sweet man, when his disability was such a burden to others that they would not even TRY to understand him, and someone other than you and me sees it.

He sees it all, so let’s make sure what he sees is us being the best we can be.
Φλογιζω/ All rights reserved/ NBJ 2015