Category: Teaching

We all must learn how to let go of anything that is keeping us bound from moving to our future when we are in limbo in the midst of two places.

LIMBO: Definition “noun, plural lim·bos. a place or state of oblivion to which persons or things are regarded as being relegated when casting aside, forgotten, past, or out of date: My youthful hopes are in the limbo of lost dreams. an intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place.”

We must learn to trust God while in limbo, for faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.

When we are blinded and seem to have lost our way, every circle we make in our sheer determination continues to bring us right back to the same exact place.

Why?  God is trying to elevate our thinking and understanding in faith so that we can finally grasp the lesson needed to move forward into the unknown.

We can only proceed after The LORD is finished with our lessons in that dry, frustrating, and confusing state.

Limbo is that place of being where we are tested and tried.  Limbo is the place where we learn from the places of our past and try to measure them up with past victories.

Destiny demands obedience to the plan in the Masters Hand.  Destiny is not the plan of cookie-cutter ministers or ministries that think if they follow a certain pattern that they will have their own copycat movement.

It is so important that we ALONE have our own prayer life and listen and line up with what The LORD is saying measured against God’s WORD Period.  Our pattern is Christ and when we gather together that we all speak the same thing.

Success in God is not necessarily success in earthly and worldly mindsets.  Success is when we face our future having nothing to see or sense is how we learn to properly glean in all situations especially hard ones.

It is those whose lessons go beyond the veil of the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies as we practice prayer, meditation, and intimacy without feeling or sensing anything in the zone of limbo.

God makes sure we won’t go forward until we have advanced learning in the land of limbo.  Even in limbo, we strive in service becoming a place of refreshing pools seeking to give refreshment to others as we have learned to advance our faith in service.

The lessons learned remain and we walk in what we have obtained in faith.  God knows our destiny is tied to our faith and he knows what must happen before we can advance in elevation, much like the Israelites had the destiny of the land of milk and honey.

Don’t think the unknown or future will be the same or familiar.  You may start out with people that you are comfortable with, or a place or belief in what you think will be your purpose.

You started out with fifty people and advanced, but what if your future changes dramatically?

Would you be faithful to one?

Wouldn’t this seem like a demolition instead of a promotion?

However, in the mind and purposes of God what is success and promotion may be vastly different than what the world says.  We must remember God is vast and what the world says is successful may not be a success for you!

“Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.  Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.  They go from strength to strength, everyone of them in Zion appeareth before God,”   Psalm 84:5-7 KJV.

God is very serious with us and may The LORD help us so that we only make it to our destiny and not to abide in the Zone for our final days.  We must be equipped to be able to carry greater, weighty purposes.

We should thank God for keeping us back if we fail to pass the tests.  There is nothing so disheartening to our soul is to have started out right then doing it our way and end up in the same place year after year.

The Israelites saw and experienced personally the power and miraculous parting of the Red Sea.  How can we fathom that a people who experienced such amazing events in a short period would murmur over manna, flesh to eat, and complain over the water?

They continued to look to the past when things were seemingly desolate and not familiar.

The Israelites hadn’t gone this way before yet saw the miracles and experienced the power of God.  It is hard to comprehend that such a people murmured wanting to go back to Egypt for their three-square meals and in the process totally offend God!

When the zone doesn’t look back to what was, because it is not there anymore.  What worked in the past is gone.  What is ahead of us may not be familiar to us because God is doing a new thing!

Had it not been for the grace of God we would be guilty of the same thing!

We tend to lean back because we cannot see the way to go like the past is what is familiar.  It currently may seem like your vision is dead and dry and everything around supports that view.

The Israelites remembered the leeks and onions as they murmured to God and failed to remember the parting of the Red Sea.

God’s Destiny of the Israelites promised them the land of milk in honey.  However, The LORD had another route for the murmurers to go into the Zone of the wilderness.

We too look behind remembering how things for our needs of sustenance was met there and we forget how God provides for our every need and care.

What was behind is dead, as we burned bridges behind us that we had to cross, but now we cannot see clearly the route to take because it is a walk of faith.

The Israelites faced a place called limbo because they wanted to return to Egypt when they were hungry and thirsty.  Didn’t we have enough food and drink in Egypt?

Is your destiny like theirs?  Are these the new places calling you out as pioneers to take us into lands and places of destiny in which we have never seen.

We must not compare everything that worked in the past to be the same.

God wants to break off everything, every distraction, every hindrance, person, place, or thing that has us stuck in limbo.

What is hard about limbo?  We only have limited knowledge that we lived before and we are not that person anymore.

We feel stuck but beloved let us not get weary in well-doing or faint in our minds for soon, if we believe, God will open that new place and you shall enter by His goodness and grace!

Study: Numbers chapter 11

 

In HIS Grace and Mercy,
~ Sherry Edwards Mackey

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In HIS Grace and Mercy,
~ Sherry Edwards Mackey

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How can we think to judge people and situations when we haven’t had the instruction by The Holy Spirit in the Word of God?

Why do we follow people blindly?  Not everyone is for you beloved and we must learn who we are to follow.

First, we follow God, secondly corporate Leadership in the church “IF” they are following Christ.   “Follow me as I follow Christ…..”

It takes time to know a person and a ministry.  Do we blindly spar with someone who we don’t know? Isn’t it stated that iron sharpens iron?

“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,”   Proverbs 27:17 KJV.

Before I can trust to spar with someone, I must know them.

The Bible says that we must know those who labor among us especially in ministry we must learn to depend on God and judge by the fruits.

God wants us and His leaders to be as living epistles seen and read of all men.

There are those in The Body who preach and dump bondage on new believers and or weaker believers who don’t understand their heritage, much like the prodigal son, who didn’t understand what he had.

The message of The Cross was and is the final payment for sin and you cannot work to keep it.

You are ‘kept’ by the power of The Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:5).  And it is totally and finally received by faith according to your salvation in Christ.   You cannot add to it or take away from it because it is final.

Once and for all Jesus paid the price for our souls and he was and is our perfect sacrifice and no longer do you appear every year to offer sacrifice for sin.  No, it is finished.  Jesus sat down at the right hand of God!

If you’re feeling like you can’t measure up, or your good enough, continue reading!

There are many religious spirits at work to steal your joy and peace.  Yes, it is 2020 and the same message applies.

Jesus spent a lot of time confronting the religious of his day who were legalists that carry with them messages of doom and gloom.

What these religious people don’t realize is they get stuck and remain in that time warp and are never able to go deeper in The LORD.

It is much like Israel remaining stuck in the desert for 40 years then the next generation took the baton as Joshua and Caleb led the next generation into the promised land.

There is a time for chastisement from our Father in Heaven.  But as a good and perfect Father he doesn’t continually chastise or use a rod on his child continually.

That would be abuse.  And it would always make us wonder if we can ever be good enough to be a Christian!

The devil comes along and adds condemnation and guilt over the sin you already repented of.  So, you continue to repent over and over for the same sin, not understanding you are forgiven from that particular chastisement.

Now move forward and tell the devil to go!  God is a perfect, a good, GOOD Father.  He doesn’t hang things over us making us guess or wonder why.  God is a good God and He is our Abba, he is not abusive.

There are so many who don’t understand this truth and they feel they can’t be free due to the feelings of condemnation, guilt, and shame.  Father God knows us and when we are chastised it is for our benefit to become like Him.

Religious doom and gloom are always trying to pronounce judgment and chastisement to the believers.

With God, it is always motivated by the great love he has for us. We are not partakers of religion, for we are sons. (Study Galatians)

The unsaved world is already under judgment already.  God’s children seen by religious judgment press that you are under judgment and chastisement.

Do NOT, I repeat, Do NOT remain broke down on the side of the road because of doom and gloom put discouragement on you.

When God chastises it is for our benefit and because of his love for us.  As a perfect father God hears your heart once you have repented and you are forgiven regardless of what you ‘FEEL’ like.

Satan always works to convince you that you will never be able to please The LORD and that you can never be free.

It’s a lie!  However, you will feel the effects of the condemnation in your flesh, that is when faith comes into play.

You aren’t led by what you feel, see, or hear, you live and are led by the Word of God! Set your mind to believe what God has done for you!

That’s the only standard we measure ourselves by.  Remember you don’t live by how you feel, you live by what The Word says.

We must learn to live by God’s standard.  God doesn’t condemn and keep chastising you when you have already asked for forgiveness and you have turned away from the sin!

Our good great Father doesn’t rehash your failure over and over keeping you under a heavyweight of doom and gloom!

We face The LORD as he confronts us, and once we repent it is done and that is it.  You’re forgiven and it is a short work so that you can get back up to move on with God and not wallow in it.

As a woman, I chastised and discipline my children and once they were punished that was it.  It was over!

Now if I can chastise and correct my child and it is over then why can’t we see how important it is to edify and build up the children of God?

Religion is all about pointing to all weakness and keeping the people of God under their restraint.

The religious make you feel that there is no hope for their future and many times believers just walk away from the ministry because they feel they’re not good enough.

I have seen religious spirits do much damage to new or immature believers because of holding perfection over the believers’ heads.

What is amazing though the religious are hypocrites as they are doing the same thing, they just keep it hidden from view.

Religious hypocrites are spinning away.  They are like being on a hamster’s wheel and soon many doom, gloom, and religious people will burn out!

Why?  Because you spin your wheel and get nowhere except the same grind every day.  Who wants to serve a God that keeps us on a hamster’s wheel going nowhere?

Many ministers get to this place as they feel they have no one they can talk to, and they quit!  They turn away being spiritually exhausted, bitter, and burned out in Christian ministry.

Jesus did so much more than we know, and he sat down and finished it!  Abba God wants you to know once you repent and turn away from the sin that you are free to develop into what he has for you!

Satan will try everything to stop you, if he can’t keep you from receiving Christ, he will do his best to try and keep you ineffective and stuck where your growth is stunted.

“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him.  Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.  And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and who are over you in The LORD and admonish you,”   1 Thessalonians 5:9-12 KJV.

Lives without prophetic discernment are stunted. We need all the parts of the body to function.  God wants you to have restoration of ALL things and times of refreshing that will come from the presence of The LORD.

God is perfect and wants you to understand, you’re His child and yes, He will chastise us and correct us.

But that is a short period and once received correction and repented of, it is gone like vanished into the sea! As far as the east is from the west he remembers our transgressions no more.  (Study Isaiah 44-22).

There are many of you I sense are struggling with this truth because of the condemnation, shame, and guilt.

Believe me, those people who are religious can only teach you what they know, and even they don’t realize yet that they are led astray by false doctrine, we preach from our experience.

To add rules and regulations and to always hover over people and they lose their joy of salvation and soon the religious dump cold water on your flame, (Hebrews 12:8)

Jesus wants you to be free and have security, joy, peace, comfort, and excitement to the new birth, but He also wants you to be free to love, free to serve, free to live, and free to obey!

 

In HIS Grace and Mercy,
~ Sherry Edwards Mackey

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“Only the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead, everything that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless, it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water,”   Numbers 31:22-23 KJV.

Remember, that the former refined areas in our lives can become dull, lacking luster or tarnished being unusable.

God’s Word compares our spiritual lives as to gold, silver, brass, iron, tin, and lead among other examples.

However, everything that has been initially made for the fire, eventually must go back through the fire, to burn away impurities so we can be brilliant and clean again, and effective for the Master’s use.

Then we must go through the washing of the water of the Word.

“That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,”   Ephesians 5:26 KJV.

“Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,”   1 Corinthians 3:12-13.

Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Fire reveals!  Water cleanses!

In the Bible it often refers that going through the fire of refinement purges away all dross or impurities that keep us from God’s best and ready use.

“Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver,”   Ezekiel 22:18 KJV.

All of us who have made Jesus The LORD of our lives will go through the times of the Refining Furnace and the crucible which is a vessel in which silver and other precious metals can be poured into withstanding high heat for pouring to shape new vessels.

“A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, but The LORD is the tester of the hearts,”   Proverbs 17:3 KJV.

Often God uses word pictures to describe the life of the true believer.  God sends mandates of trials and testing of the true believer to purify us and prove to “ourselves” who and what we truly are and what we believe.

Often, we don’t or won’t see ourselves unless some kind of event happens that provokes a negative reaction in us.

When a negative reaction happens, we will then act accordingly.  As the dross is removed from the silver through high heat and poured into a crucible, a pure vessel will come forth.

God is saying that through our lives and circumstances, although not easy, He is preparing us, and refining us.

Like the silver is processed, so the word “refine” speaks that God will test us in various types of seemingly heated situations.  It’s not comfortable to go through the fire but a necessity for our growth.

Using the metaphor of going through the furnace or refining fire, speaks that our particular trial and test has a purpose and design for our physical and spiritual well-being.  There are many afflictions in the believer’s lifetime.

All are designed so we become more like Jesus.  When God tests us, it isn’t to fail us but that we would awake with his likeness.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but The LORD delivers him out of them all,”   Psalms 34:19.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but The LORD delivereth him out of them all.

Study:

“As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you,”   Ezekiel 22:20.

“Because I knew that you were obstinate, and your neck was an iron sinew, and your brow bronze,”   Isaiah 48:4.

“How the gold has become dim! How changed the fine gold!  The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street.  The precious sons of Zion, valuable as fine gold, how they are regarded as clay pots, the work of the hands of the potter!”   Lamentations 4:1-2.

“The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but The LORD tests the hearts,”   Proverbs 17:3.

“He shall cross over to his stronghold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the banner,” says The LORD, Whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem,”   Isaiah 31:9.

“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction,”    Isaiah 48:10.

 

In HIS Grace and Mercy,
~ Sherry Edwards Mackey

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