A Girl It Is!

Lydia Nicole Hayes 

22.5" Long 7lbs 6oz.

Grace

This week has been an extreme of emotions. I returned home Monday after being deployed for 4 months to the Middle East. I met my wife, who is due today to deliver our baby, and my Mom and Dad at the airport. We've had a pretty good time this week with my younger brother coming to visit us while we waiting on my daughter to be born. All was good, that was until my mom received a call from my older brother. My mom came into the kitchen, very shaken, distressed and crying.

My brothers ex-wife had committed suicide.

She left behind her son, who is in my brothers custody, and a baby boy she had from a later relationship.

We all knew she was under attack, trapped in a spiritual battlefield. She was incredibly beautiful and very smart with a loving husband but somehow drugs and alcohol found it's way into her life. Even at the cost of loosing her husband and son she couldn't escape the bonds of addiction.

Prayer after prayer was prayed.

Honestly I don't know how to take this. Suicide and thou shall not kill.

I remember visiting my brother and her when they moved back to the USA from Germany. She was a great cook and always had something baking in the oven or cooking on the stove. A beautiful infant boy with sandy blond hair and a stupid little dog. Not long later my brother left the military and moved to Memphis where they bought a brand new home. She got a job as a dental assistant and my brother worked for a large company. I don't know where it started but like with me it started small. Jealousy and envy. Distrust and suspicion. What lies beneath the enticing veal of sin? Very hard, incredibly hard feelings to deal with in a marriage.

Blind we all stood while thieves took her from right in front of us.

Satan has no love for my family. He had always worked hard against my parents, my brothers, and me. When my older brother understood he was called to preach a Satanist came up against him and threated his life. My brother was protected by his decision to follow God. When I was at my event horizon Jesus Christ pulled me from the very edge and saved me from death and here I am today because of my decision to follow God and help others. Satan couldn't have us so he attacked where he could and found ground in her to try and hurt us. 

We all know a strong demon had control over her and pushed her into depression and addiction. She left and couldn't listen to anyones plea because he had made her deaf and hard. I prayed for God to bind these spirits, it was all I could do. To allow her to make her choice but the body was slave to the world. Freedom was but a whisper that she couldn't hear. Death coaxed her and fooled her, freedom was falsified to her.

Death isn't the Victor here. Oh no, not here.

Christ alone defeated death and He now holds the keys to death and hell. He is the judge, not me and not you. 

Did she go to hell? 

I don't believe this because I know Jesus Christ holds those very keys. She suffered horribly at the hands of Satan and it's one of Jesus's greatest qualities to pick up those who suffer and to give them grace beyond our understanding. He is her father and in this moment he knows her heart.

God Bless Melissa, Show her grace and the love she so deeply needs now that she is in your hands. Amen.

The Great Intercession

Can you imagine the conversation between God and the Son standing on the shores of heaven on the day he created man? Looking forward into time, before the first breathe had been drawn into human lungs, knowing what was going to happen.

I can see that it was very quiet, very somber moment when God had come to his decision. Seeing how mankind turned away from their own creator. Violence, greed, jealousy, full of lust and hate. God was grieving. He gave Adam life only to see them fall away. There Noah stood with his family as God closed the doors of the massive ship. One man and One God. The heavy door slammed shut with a resounding echo ending the first era of man. The slate wiped clean. “Only one man worthy.” God said as the flood waters poured from the heavens.

Generations would be born and generations would pass away from the seed of Noah. God the father would hand down commandments in effort to help guide his people on how to live. “Love each other. Honor each other. Love and Honor me.” What more or what less did the 10 commandments say? Again the people turned away because they worshiped the stone the words were written on and not the one who made them. The rocks would sing out instead.
They lusted for the created but they did not love the Creator. They worried more about keeping each other under the law than keeping the law. They couldn't understand that the law wasn't for the righteous to follow but to show them where they sinned. God gave the law to Moses and no sooner had the dust settled from their tents when the people turned away. Furious and filled with anger God was going to burn them all into ash when Moses interceded and saved the fallen nation of Israel.

What is so incredibly hard to understand about a spiritual God? God didn't want what he created worshiped! Not even a idol to represent God is acceptable to him. If you pray to a cross and hold on it for protection you created a idol from the cross. We are given strength through faith and we believe by faith in God. When a person kisses the feet of a statue they made a idol. The children of Israel couldn't understand this. You can understand, it's not the cross that is holy, it's not the church that is holy, it's not the water that is holy, it's not the wine or bread that is holy.

Only Jesus Christ and Father God are Holy!

But the people were more worried about pleasing and impressing each other than listening and praising God. Are the doves white and the lamb perfect? Is the gold Jewish or Roman? Too much time preparing the dinner and not enough time preparing the soul. Darkness surrounded those who tried to light the world with lamps that held no oil.
Jesus Christ stood there with his father, again on the shores of heaven, knowing, on the day he created man.

God was going to wipe everyone out one last time. You know it was there. God was so upset with man. No man was worthy. Time and time again he reached down feeding the hungry, healing the sick, provided warmth to the cold, and drink to the parched. Pulled his people from Egypt and gave them his Holy land. A covenant failed. No one was worthy. It was there in that moment that the knowing became.

Father! What people refuse to see!

In a whisper...

“I will.”

Perhaps those are the two most important words ever spoken in all the universe.
The greatest intercession ever made. Even before Adam drew in his first breath.
God the Father, Jesus Christ his Son, knowing everything, still found you worthy.