The Lord has been revealing so much to me. What I really want to talk about though is the whole concept of being "faithful in the small". I have grown up hearing that as well as the well known parables of the bad servant who hid his talent and got punished for it. I was always taught that we must use our talents for the Lord, however, that story never really made sense to me. Actually, I always kind of felt really sorry for that poor servant, I sympathized with him. I mean, what if he didn't have the skills to make good business investments? What if he was truly doing the best he could with what he had? What if he was an artsy kind & just genuinely had no interest in business? At least he hadn't stolen it and used it for himself right? So why was God being so mean to him?
Well, the Holy Spirit revealed something to me about the servant that I had never even thought about. It turns out it really wasn't about what he did or didn't do with the talent, it was about his heart. Abba is always ultimately interested in the motives of our hearts. The problem was that the servant had a very negative perception of who his master was. In Matthew 25:24-25 we see his attitude towards his master, "Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow,
and gathering where you did not scatter seed, so I was afraid, and I
went and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours." Basically, he thought of his master as a "hard man" and pretty much told him that he was an exploiter who had extreme demands and was unfair. At least that's how I read it. That's when I realized that the problem was the servant's attitude that was produced by a wrong image of his master. Having a wrong image of our Heavenly Father causes us to FEAR, fear failure, fear not being good enough, fear stepping out and taking risks and we all know, there is no fear in love.
This hit me like a brick wall, because I am that servant. I have always struggled with a twisted image of my Heavenly Father, I'm still in the middle of a battle for the truth of who God is. I got a fresh insight into why I have struggled to step into the fullness of my destiny in Jesus, it's because I still don't trust Yahweh to be who He says He is. I still have not been perfected in His love, therefore, there is still fear in my heart. Yet the Lord is so merciful and kind, He showed me this reality through my job situation.
I have been struggling so much at work. It is not my passion, there are very difficult people that I have to work under. It is a very tough environment to be in. I found myself resorting back to my old ways of dealing with hostility, through lashing out in anger. My attitude got so bad that my supervisor had to reprimand me and tell me straight up that I was an ungrateful employee who didn't even try to do the bare minimum of what was expected of me. That was my wake up call. I started seeking the Lord for answers to my horrible behavior, and the Lord showed me, as He always does. I had not been working as "unto the Lord" because I felt the Lord was being "unfair" in placing me in such a "hard" place and under such harsh people. The Lord showed me that regardless of whether my bosses treat me fairly or not, my privilege is to work for Him, it is a blessing. Therefore, I have to treat it as such. But before I can do that, I have to realize that it is God who is my boss, and He is an AMAZING one. I am not going to lie and say that I have already gotten this, because I haven't. Even as I write this I am feeling like I'm in the pit alongside Joseph, but I have the sure hope that the Lord will complete the work He has started in me, and soon, I will be able to, like Joseph, find joy in the midst of darkness, peace in the midst of hostility.
So, my advice to you all, is no matter what situation you are in, if you find yourself being miserable, struggling with finances, or just "stuck" in some rut, look up and make sure your heart knows who your Father really is. Ask the Lord to search your heart and see if there is any wicked way in it, and when He does, repent and turn away from it and focus on getting to know your Heavenly Father. Even if your behavior doesn't change immediately, just keep going, keep seeking Him, and in so doing, He will transform you and renew your mind. You will see Him as He is and all the lies will melt away in the fire of His love!
Monday, September 24, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
It's all about the small things
Hello again!! I know it took me forever to write another post, it has just been SUCH a crazy whirlwind of things in my life!
Just ONE QUICK testimony out of MANY that God is blowing me away with. A lot of you know that I come from a broken family. We have gone through alot and my parents marriage has for the most part been nothing but ink on a paper, at BEST. In the beginning of last week, God deposited in me this INSANELY STRONG KNOWING in my spirit that breakthrough was coming SOON in my father. I was SO filled with this supernatural faith that I spent the whole day just worshiping and full of this amazingly incredible JOY. I interceded with such an intensity and just felt so PUMPED and like ANYTHING was truly possible! It was glorious! However, the Holy Spirit still warned me that it would get worse before it got better (it almost ALWAYS does in every situation). So I was like, "yeah, yeah God I know, but BREAKTHROUGH IS COMING WOOOHOOO!!" So literally a day later, the "worse" began. My family came under severe attack, I could almost physically feel the oppression and just the evil in the atmosphere. Sure enough, it got pretty bad. I began to get resentment in my heart towards my dad which made me VERY UPSET because I know it's NOT ok to have resentment towards anyone and ESPECIALLY towards my FATHER. So, there I was being resentful, frustrated beyond words, depressed, discouraged and just plain MISERABLE just ONE DAY after feeling like the invincible faith-filled super spiritual woman! Which, just knowing THAT made me even MORE frustrated and depressed. And I will even confess that I was upset at GOD because I was like, "God KNOWS that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REEEAAALLYYYYYYY DO NOT want to be feeling this resentment towards my dad, so WHY DO I STILL FEEL IT DANGIT!!! WHY DOES HE NOT JUST TAKE IT AWAY ALREADY ONCE AND FOR ALL!!! WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE!!"
And God, the ever-faithful, amazingly PATIENT loving Father that He is, was probably looking down at me shaking His head and smiling. When I got home, the Holy Spirit prompted me to go talk to my dad and be nice. So I did, even though I REALLY did not feel like doing it. Then we got to talking and the whole time there was an INTENSE war inside of me because my flesh just wanted to blow up at him but the Holy Spirit was telling me "SHUT UP PERLA, JUST SHUT IT!!" And of course EVERY time that God commands us to do something it's because He has already given you the grace to do it, all we have to do is die to our flesh and just DO IT. So, by God's grace I did, which was probably the first time I've ever completely remained silent and listened to my dad without interrupting or contradicting him. I thought I was going to be there for days...and in my head the whole time I was arguing with God asking Him, "what do you want me to say? Do you REALLY just want me to sit here and wait until my father stops talking? You know that can easily be DAYS!!" and I heard Him say, "Be still and know that I am God". So that shut me up, so as my dad was talking, I still had that question in my spirit of, "ok, if he does stop talking, what am I going to say!!" And I finally heard the Holy Spirit say, "you will declare what I declare, you will say what I say, you will NOT say what you FEEL like saying, you will agree with MY Word and declare only that". So, for the first time in my LIFE, my dad stopped talking out of his own accord (we Moreno's can TALK!!). I mean he LITERALLY said, "Ok, I think I've talked enough", that in itself is a MIRACLE!! And at that moment, I IMMEDIATELY knew exactly what I needed to say because the Holy Spirit LITERALLY put the words in my heart. And I declared exactly what Holy Spirit told me even though it had NOTHING to do with what my dad had been talking about up to that point.
It was one of those glorious Holy Spirit moments where you literally are FILLED with Him and your whole being feels heavy with the presence of God. I looked straight into my dad's eyes and with a massive intensity & authority (that obviously did not come from me but from God) I declared: "God has promised me that He will restore my family, that He is going to transform each one of us, and that YOU will LOVE your wife as Christ loves His Bride!!" And when I began declaring those words, I literally FELT the shift in the spiritual realm happen within me, as if I was literally taking a HUGE impossible leap over an infinite chasm. I can hardly describe what I felt, but it was SO powerful that I just started wailing like a crazy woman. I couldn't stop, the emotion was so overwhelming I couldn't speak any more words. And the most amazing thing happened, my dad (who is a very un-emotional man) started crying. He didn't say a word and got up and came over to hug me, we both cried together and he started praying (he had never done that on his own before). He started praying for strength and grace to do what I had just declared. I saw his brokenness, I felt his sincerity, and for that moment, I got to see the man God created my father to be. I got to see a short, but oh-so precious glimpse into his shattered, discouraged heart, and I got to shine a bit of light into it.
Even though complete breakthrough has not yet happened in my family, that night was definitely a huge turning point in my heart. It was God showing me a glimpse into what He sees in my dad, He was telling me, "this is why I can love the unlovable, because I don't see what everyone else sees, I don't see the hardened shell, I see the bruised, tattered hearts that are so heavy-laden with years upon YEARS of sin and darkness weighing them down and keeping them slaves. I see my dearly beloved precious jewels buried in mire, drowning in the lies of satan, slowly dying, and it TEARS ME UP". My heart was so broken for my dad, I finally began to see him as a treasure that has been stolen and beat up. I finally began to see how much he needs to be shown the love of Christ, the unconditional, unrelentless, utterly IRRATIONAL love of the Father...and He needs to experience it through ME. It is the way of the Kingdom of our great Yaweh, to teach us to love the way He loves. The best way to do that is to take the person who has hurt you the most and open your eyes and heart and enable us to see them the way He sees them. And when we truly are able to love the one person who has done the most damage to us, THEN we can BEGIN to love the way Jesus loves. And for those of you who truly knew me before I gave my life to Jesus, you will know the utter impossibility of me getting to this point with my father. It is TRULY only because of the undeniable power of the love of Jesus that I stand here today with LOVE in my heart for my daddy Joaquin Moreno.
And please, I want to clarify that I do not in ANY way want to dishonor my dad in anything that I have said. As all families, we have our struggles and God is doing an AMAZING work in my father. He is an amazingly gifted & talented man who loves the Lord. My only purpose in saying this testimony is because of how powerful and amazing what God is doing is, and I just can't keep it to myself, I must TESTIFY!!
So, I encourage you all to take the Word of God at face value and BELIEVE that when He commanded us to LOVE our enemies, to BE PERFECT as He is perfect, He did so BECAUSE He has ALREADY given us the grace and strength to do so. His BLOOD is enough, the power of sin, in ALL its forms (including hatred, resentment & unforgiveness) has been ETERNALLY BROKEN off of us!! There is NOTHING that can separate us from His great PERFECTING love. So go ahead, love your enemies, forgive the unforgivable and be FREE!!
"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."--2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Just ONE QUICK testimony out of MANY that God is blowing me away with. A lot of you know that I come from a broken family. We have gone through alot and my parents marriage has for the most part been nothing but ink on a paper, at BEST. In the beginning of last week, God deposited in me this INSANELY STRONG KNOWING in my spirit that breakthrough was coming SOON in my father. I was SO filled with this supernatural faith that I spent the whole day just worshiping and full of this amazingly incredible JOY. I interceded with such an intensity and just felt so PUMPED and like ANYTHING was truly possible! It was glorious! However, the Holy Spirit still warned me that it would get worse before it got better (it almost ALWAYS does in every situation). So I was like, "yeah, yeah God I know, but BREAKTHROUGH IS COMING WOOOHOOO!!" So literally a day later, the "worse" began. My family came under severe attack, I could almost physically feel the oppression and just the evil in the atmosphere. Sure enough, it got pretty bad. I began to get resentment in my heart towards my dad which made me VERY UPSET because I know it's NOT ok to have resentment towards anyone and ESPECIALLY towards my FATHER. So, there I was being resentful, frustrated beyond words, depressed, discouraged and just plain MISERABLE just ONE DAY after feeling like the invincible faith-filled super spiritual woman! Which, just knowing THAT made me even MORE frustrated and depressed. And I will even confess that I was upset at GOD because I was like, "God KNOWS that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REEEAAALLYYYYYYY DO NOT want to be feeling this resentment towards my dad, so WHY DO I STILL FEEL IT DANGIT!!! WHY DOES HE NOT JUST TAKE IT AWAY ALREADY ONCE AND FOR ALL!!! WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE!!"
And God, the ever-faithful, amazingly PATIENT loving Father that He is, was probably looking down at me shaking His head and smiling. When I got home, the Holy Spirit prompted me to go talk to my dad and be nice. So I did, even though I REALLY did not feel like doing it. Then we got to talking and the whole time there was an INTENSE war inside of me because my flesh just wanted to blow up at him but the Holy Spirit was telling me "SHUT UP PERLA, JUST SHUT IT!!" And of course EVERY time that God commands us to do something it's because He has already given you the grace to do it, all we have to do is die to our flesh and just DO IT. So, by God's grace I did, which was probably the first time I've ever completely remained silent and listened to my dad without interrupting or contradicting him. I thought I was going to be there for days...and in my head the whole time I was arguing with God asking Him, "what do you want me to say? Do you REALLY just want me to sit here and wait until my father stops talking? You know that can easily be DAYS!!" and I heard Him say, "Be still and know that I am God". So that shut me up, so as my dad was talking, I still had that question in my spirit of, "ok, if he does stop talking, what am I going to say!!" And I finally heard the Holy Spirit say, "you will declare what I declare, you will say what I say, you will NOT say what you FEEL like saying, you will agree with MY Word and declare only that". So, for the first time in my LIFE, my dad stopped talking out of his own accord (we Moreno's can TALK!!). I mean he LITERALLY said, "Ok, I think I've talked enough", that in itself is a MIRACLE!! And at that moment, I IMMEDIATELY knew exactly what I needed to say because the Holy Spirit LITERALLY put the words in my heart. And I declared exactly what Holy Spirit told me even though it had NOTHING to do with what my dad had been talking about up to that point.
It was one of those glorious Holy Spirit moments where you literally are FILLED with Him and your whole being feels heavy with the presence of God. I looked straight into my dad's eyes and with a massive intensity & authority (that obviously did not come from me but from God) I declared: "God has promised me that He will restore my family, that He is going to transform each one of us, and that YOU will LOVE your wife as Christ loves His Bride!!" And when I began declaring those words, I literally FELT the shift in the spiritual realm happen within me, as if I was literally taking a HUGE impossible leap over an infinite chasm. I can hardly describe what I felt, but it was SO powerful that I just started wailing like a crazy woman. I couldn't stop, the emotion was so overwhelming I couldn't speak any more words. And the most amazing thing happened, my dad (who is a very un-emotional man) started crying. He didn't say a word and got up and came over to hug me, we both cried together and he started praying (he had never done that on his own before). He started praying for strength and grace to do what I had just declared. I saw his brokenness, I felt his sincerity, and for that moment, I got to see the man God created my father to be. I got to see a short, but oh-so precious glimpse into his shattered, discouraged heart, and I got to shine a bit of light into it.
Even though complete breakthrough has not yet happened in my family, that night was definitely a huge turning point in my heart. It was God showing me a glimpse into what He sees in my dad, He was telling me, "this is why I can love the unlovable, because I don't see what everyone else sees, I don't see the hardened shell, I see the bruised, tattered hearts that are so heavy-laden with years upon YEARS of sin and darkness weighing them down and keeping them slaves. I see my dearly beloved precious jewels buried in mire, drowning in the lies of satan, slowly dying, and it TEARS ME UP". My heart was so broken for my dad, I finally began to see him as a treasure that has been stolen and beat up. I finally began to see how much he needs to be shown the love of Christ, the unconditional, unrelentless, utterly IRRATIONAL love of the Father...and He needs to experience it through ME. It is the way of the Kingdom of our great Yaweh, to teach us to love the way He loves. The best way to do that is to take the person who has hurt you the most and open your eyes and heart and enable us to see them the way He sees them. And when we truly are able to love the one person who has done the most damage to us, THEN we can BEGIN to love the way Jesus loves. And for those of you who truly knew me before I gave my life to Jesus, you will know the utter impossibility of me getting to this point with my father. It is TRULY only because of the undeniable power of the love of Jesus that I stand here today with LOVE in my heart for my daddy Joaquin Moreno.
And please, I want to clarify that I do not in ANY way want to dishonor my dad in anything that I have said. As all families, we have our struggles and God is doing an AMAZING work in my father. He is an amazingly gifted & talented man who loves the Lord. My only purpose in saying this testimony is because of how powerful and amazing what God is doing is, and I just can't keep it to myself, I must TESTIFY!!
So, I encourage you all to take the Word of God at face value and BELIEVE that when He commanded us to LOVE our enemies, to BE PERFECT as He is perfect, He did so BECAUSE He has ALREADY given us the grace and strength to do so. His BLOOD is enough, the power of sin, in ALL its forms (including hatred, resentment & unforgiveness) has been ETERNALLY BROKEN off of us!! There is NOTHING that can separate us from His great PERFECTING love. So go ahead, love your enemies, forgive the unforgivable and be FREE!!
"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."--2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Thursday, January 26, 2012
PearlOfGr8Price
I would like to, first of all, explain the title of my blog, what it means and why I chose it. So, as many of you know, my name is Perla, which means "pearl" in Spanish. Well, most people think that's a "beautiful" name and always compliment me on it. However, I HATED it to the utmost degree, most of my life. They made fun of me at school about it, and furthermore, in Spanish it sounds perilously close to the word for female dog which is "perra". So I have always been self-conscious of it. That is UNTIL...until Jesus told me why He had given me that name, and yes HE is the one who named me that.
I was at my friend's house and I was talking about how I've been through some intense adversity in my life and my friend Justin asked, "you know how pearl's are made right?" And I looked at him with a deer in the headlights look and said, "uuhhh...no" So he proceeded to explain to me how they were made. My heart was pierced. God spoke directly to my soul through my friend. He told me how the pearl is literally the result of the oyster turning adversity into something valuable & beautiful. It was as if God was saying to me, "yes my love, you have gone through alot of tough things, but that's what has, and is making you into such a beautiful, precious, one of a kind pearl of GREAT price to me!!" From that day on, God has taken me on this AMAZING, GLORIOUS, EXTRAVAGANT journey of discovering what it REALLY means to be God's Pearl of GREAT price. The very fact that I'm starting this blog is a testament of how far I've come in that revelation, oh but I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of discovering who I really am in Jesus. Well, this is my way of archiving this journey and hopefully it will help YOU to discover who YOU are, who HE is and what this life is all about!!
My desire is that you all discover what Jesus did for you and realize you are HIS treasure, only to discover that HE is OUR Pearl of great price, and why it's only LOGICAL to let go of all that we have and pursue this GREAT treasure! This is the divine romance...we love Him because He first loved us!!
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it."--Matthew 13:45-46
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