Mar 14, 2018 REMEMBER
One of the most significant spirits that guard the threshold is the spirit of forgetting. God gives us instructions about guarding our memory on thresholds and the most important of these are found wrapped up in a single directive which is to be written on doorposts and gates and tied to hands and foreheads: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
This is all about remembrance. It’s why that little “box” called the mezuzah from the word for “doorpost” is affixed near the doorway.
And no surprise – if God gives us a command to remember, the evil one wants to ruin it by having us forget. Most of us don’t realise there is a spirit of forgetting. Its activities are well-known to us, though we often fail to recognise them for what they are. And though there are several options for the “name” of such a spirit, I’ve chosen Ziz in my new book. Because “ziz” is the central syllable of the word “mezuzah”.
5 Oct 2018 – OVERCOMING WITH TRUTH AND JOY.
The most efficient of all the threshold spirits who try to block our way into our calling is the spirit of forgetting. At least, that’s my assessment. Forgetting is the opposite of re-membering, and its opposite is, most accurately, dis-membering. What does forgetting dismember?
Truth.
The belt of truth mentioned in Ephesians 6 is, in fact, the belt of not-forgetting! How do we overcome this spirit of forgetting (which, when we forget truth, will lead us into jezebelic practices including witchcraft and ingratitude)?
Simple – we’re given two things. One is part of the armour of God and one is a fruit of the Spirit. The part of the armour is obviously the belt of truth. The fruit of the Spirit is joy.
How do we get joy? Not as hard as you might think. We start practising the art of thanksgiving at all times and in all circumstances. The Greek word for thanksgiving, “eucharisteo”, has hidden within it “charis” – meaning “joy”.
What have you got to be thankful to God for today?
9 Jan 2018 – JOY AND THANKSGIVING
I’ve just finished reading Ann Voskamp’s book, “One Thousand Gifts”. In it, she points out that at the Last Supper, Jesus gave thanks and broke the bread.
To give thanks is “eucharisteo” – and in the middle of it is “charis” meaning grace, and like a kernel inside “charis” is “chara”, meaning joy.
Joy is ultimately related to thanksgiving. But more than that, Jesus linked giving thanks to memory. “Do this in memory…”
On the threshold into our calling, there is a spirit of forgetting waiting to stop us. How do we overcome this spirit? With joy.
And how do we get joy? Through giving thanks.
1 Sep 2017 – DOORWAYS
You know that frustrating feeling when you go into another room and forgot what you came for? Well, according to researchers exiting or entering through a doorway can be a signal to the mind to file away a previous episode of activity and get ready for the new.
There’s not just a psychological component to doorways and memory, however. There’s a spiritual component. Maybe that’s why God directed His people to remember His command to love Him with all your heart and mind and strength at all times, even to: “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:8)
Not just because we so easily forget, but because there’s a spirit of forgetting only too willing to help us. If you think it’s on your case, it almost certainly is. It’s a high level spirit so we should be careful not to overstep our authority. It’s not advisable to bind it but to say, as directed by two different apostles, Jude and Peter: “The Lord rebuke you!”
7 Feb 2017 – GUILT AND SHAME
There are many reasons we come into agreement with a spirit of forgetting and make an alliance with it. Two of the most common are guilt and shame.
Instead of taking our guilt and shame to the cross of Jesus and leaving it there, we devise a coping mechanism: forgetting. Soon enough, a spirit can see the enormous advantages of what we’ve done and, instead of an occasional one-off action, ‘forgetting’ or perhaps ‘re-writing history’ becomes a lifestyle.
By that stage, we’re never taking our sinful responses to Jesus. We don’t even remember them.
But nevertheless we’re constantly asking God, “Why aren’t You answering my prayers?”
For some of us, the answer is: because you haven’t cancelled your alliance with the spirit of forgetting.
17 Oct 2018 – FORGETTING LEADING TO PANIC
Just in the last few days, I have realised how strong the alliance between the spirit of forgetting and the spirit of rejection is. (Thanks to the many friends from all corners of the globe who gave me little pieces of jigsaw that slotted together!)
The spirit of forgetting is overcome by joy through thankfulness to God. But what happens when that spirit realises its time is up in your life? Naturally, it calls up reinforcements to make it almost impossible for you to give thanks. If you’re panicking, thankfulness is the last thing on your mind. If you’re feeling rejected, you’re definitely not in the mood to “give thanks in all circumstances.”
A prime example of this is found in the story of Elijah. Jezebel has basically lost after the confrontation at Mount Carmel. But with just a few words, she causes Elijah to panic and run for his life.
Now, I know others see the primary spirit behind Jezebel differently but I consider it to be “the spirit of forgetting”. She is an exemplar of a person so dominated by it, she is able to project it at others. Elijah forgets all God has done in his life during the drought, he forgets God’s intervention at Mount Carmel just 24 hours previously, he forgets what Obadiah told him about 48 hours previously (that there are 100 prophets safe in a couple of caves). Driven by panic, he runs into the desert. And even though he meets with God at Mount Horeb, he never really recovers from the threat Jezebel made. God gives him a job – to anoint three people. But he only anoints one.
If you’ve been practising thankfulness lately – and have suddenly been attacked by bouts of panic – it’s not because being thankful wasn’t working in developing joy. It’s because it was.
6 Feb 2017 – SOLUTIONS
Yesterday I talked about the spirit of forgetting. But I didn’t mention how the issue was solved. Once I realised my faulty memory wasn’t (always) a physical issue, I asked God what I could do about it.
His answer was that it wasn’t a simple matter. Rebuking the spirit wasn’t going to work very effectively. It would simply laugh – because it had more rights than I could even begin to imagine. So, He asked me to remember something: that He is the God who works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. So, what He hinted was that I should ask that, when I did forget that (1) I would realise I had forgotten and (2) as I worked to recover the memory, I would uncover more that I’d lost than I would ever have had if the memory had not been lost.
So that’s what I did. The more the spirit took from me, the more I eventually gained back. Spectacularly so. We serve a God of abundance, after all.
The spirit of forgetting finally decided it wasn’t willing to stick around in these circumstances, so it took off. It didn’t do this instantly; I guess it hoped that I’d lose faith in God’s willingness to come through for me and that I’d slip back into my old ways.
Now, don’t make a formula out of what worked for me. Maybe a simple statement, “May the Lord Jesus of Nazareth rebuke you!” will work for you.
Talk to God and ask Him to design a personal strategy for you.
