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
