I Have Died A Thousand Deaths…

Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship. Romans 12: 1 TPT

My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine! Galatians 2:20 TPT

We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you. 2 Corinthians 4:11-12 TPT

When I was around 7 years old, I thought that the offering was taken to a special room in which individuals with a special assignment handed the money over to angels to be counted and to support the abundant economy of Heaven. Around the same time, I thought the bread and wine we took for communion came directly from Heaven. I thought that Heaven brought us fresh bread and wine every week, and the divine stewardesses were granted the holy privilege to steward over this supernatural reality… Up until my sophomore year of high school I thought the tooth fairy was real because (in alignment with my faith-filled childhood understanding of Heaven’s supernatural economy) she was an angel assigned to release finances to the children of God.

From a young age I would see angels and demons. I would commune with the Lord and I would talk to Him. For me, talking with God was always about presence. I remember at a young age vivid moments of peace, stillness, and silence where I knew it was the presence of God. I didn’t have words for it but to this day, I remember, I remember vividly the God who kept me in my childhood and discipled me in the supernatural realities of Heaven.

Looking back, I wish I had someone who discipled me in the supernatural. I learned about Jesus in Sunday school but no one taught me that I could see and talk to angels, how to navigate the supernatural.

Now walking confidently in my apostolic and prophetic calling to birth movements and to build the household of God, it seems like all of these key childhood experiences have been foundational in understanding who I have always been: a prophet of God.

Oh to be raised in a church that does not honor the prophets or the prophetic office… Oh to be raised in a church where religion has become God and relationship with Him has become only secondary to the main meal of “doing church”…

I do not discount the salvation of any individual from my childhood, but as I ponder and reflect on my formative years, who taught me how to talk to Jesus? Who told me what to do when demons come and tell me to take my life? When the spirit of depression and anxiety and violence come to wrap me in their arms of perversion and keep me bound to spirits of perversion?

I did not know I was suffering. I did not know how to ask for help.

Praise be to God, I was a part of a praying church, with praying parents with a heart from God that I look up to and admire to this day. Their radical faith led them to leave their 6-figure jobs and 3-story house on the riverside of Fort Washington, Maryland for the gang-infested mission field of Hanover Park in Cape Town, South Africa.

I remember.

I remember not knowing how we were going to buy groceries. I remember having one table in our living room (no other furniture). I remember our father making salmon salad and it being one of the best meals we had had in a while… We struggled. We lived off donations.

We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you. 2 Corinthians 4:11-12 TPT

As much as I have tried to run from the legacy of missions, I find that before the God of my childhood, I cannot escape it.

I have tried to run from the God who calls us to suffer. Having suffered so much at the hand of the sacrifices of my parents, I have historically been deathly afraid— even today I am afraid.

Christ has called me to die to self-preservation.

My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine! Galatians 2:20 TPT

To get to the point of surrender to Christ that I am at today has required me to die a thousand deaths. One thousand deaths equates to 2.7 years of daily dying. I was saved when I was 8 years old, and to the best that I was discipled and knew of God, I walked with Him. Then the God of my childhood encountered me when I lived in Senegal, Africa as a service volunteer in 2017, and since then He has asked over and over in a thousand different ways, “Will you die a thousand deaths for me? To see my glory manifested here on earth as it is in Heaven?”

We talk often about walking in “your calling”, “your purpose”, “your destiny” but very seldom do we discuss the death that is required. Not all of us carry the same mantle and so not all of us must die or live the way that some are, but each must reckon, in Christ, with the calling to die.

My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine! Galatians 2:20 TPT

I know to see the fullness of the calling upon my life will require a thousand more deaths, in a thousand more ways, in ways seen and unseen, predictable and unpredictable.

Since I heard the call to live and die as a missionary for the cause of Christ on the shores of West Africa in 2017, I have been unable to shake the question of God which knocks on my heart day after day: Will you die for me?

Whoever loves father or mother or son or daughter more than me is not fit to be my disciple. And whoever comes to me must follow in my steps and be willing to share my cross and experience it as his own, or he is not worthy of me. Those who cling to their lives will give up true life. But those who let go of their lives for my sake and surrender it all to me will discover true life! Matthew 10:37-39

We often discuss whether or not Christ is worthy of us, but rarely do we ask if we are worthy of Him….

Much of the inadequacy I feel regarding the call of God upon my life lives not in the natural circumstances of my life or the conditions of my past, but rather the very real way in which God showed me that apart from Him I am nothing.

He is the Most Holy and Living God and I am unworthy to be near Him, to touch Him, to encounter Him, and yet— He calls me a friend.

Alas, and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?

Alas, and did my Savior bleed

I don’t want to fail Him.

As much as I love Him and want to love Him, I know my flesh desires self-preservation. I know that my flesh hates the call to die and to surrender. I am afraid that somehow, that one day, the cost will be too great and I will choose the preservation of my body over the sake of Christ.

My greatest fear in life is that I will deny Him and the power of His resurrection through my own desire for self-preservation.

This is my fear— and I must wrestle down this fear every day.

You know… I realized something. I used to think that there would be one fast, one moment in my life when I would conquer this fear and never be afraid again. But I realized that this fear isn’t really a “bad thing”. In fact, He reminds me over and over of the scripture:

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23 NIV

I don’t know if I’ll make it. I don’t know if I will make it to the end of my race and not stumble. I don’t know. So many ministers start off strong, and fall and fail, and disappoint the very people that came to Christ under their ministry. So, I don’t know. Can I say that I am any better or more secure than the next minister who has fallen away to the sin of their choice? No, I can’t…

I am learning to identify the guarantees in life that I do have and the guarantees I don’t. In my own ability and capacity, there is no guarantee that I’ll make it to Heaven…

But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. Matthew 10:33 NIV

God forbid that in my last moments of life, I deny Him out of fear of death…

But, though this may not be guaranteed I am learning that in Him, I do have much to have faith in.

I pray with great faith for you, because I’m fully convinced that the One who began this gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you until the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ! Philippians 1:6 TPT

And this is no empty hope, for God himself is the one who has prepared us for this wonderful destiny. And to confirm this promise, he has given us the Holy Spirit, like an engagement ring, as a guarantee. 2 Corinthians 5:5 TPT

The Holy Spirit is my engagement ring, my guarantee.

As long as I am surrendered and close to the Holy Spirit, I know I am safe. As long as I ask for the grace to die to myself and to live the way Christ lived, I know my salvation is secure and I do not have to live in fear that I will fail Him, not to give Him the fullness of the reward He is worthy of in and over my life…

As long as I humble myself before Him, receiving the grace to do so, I know I will overcome.

Your boast becomes a prophecy of a future failure.
The higher you lift yourself up in pride,
the harder you’ll fall in disgrace. Proverbs 16:18 TPT

So beware if you think it could never happen to you, lest your pride becomes your downfall. 1 Corinthians 10:12 TPT

I am not greater than failure, I am not greater than denial. Peter lives in me. Judas lives in me.

My guarantee is not in my ability to obey, but in your ability to lead my heart into obedience.

Daily my prayer is,

Keep creating in me a clean heart.
Fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires, ready to please you.
May you never reject me!
May you never take from me your sacred Spirit! Psalm 51:10-11 TPT

I am only safe in His arms.

Lord teach me to obey you. Teach me to love you better every day. Let me always be teachable, tender, and submitted to your Word no matter what the cost, no matter how much humble pie I must eat.

I fear you. I revere you. I know this is the beginning of wisdom.

Oh God of my childhood, may you never take the gift of reverence away from me that leads me to the cross every day. Every fear, every lukewarm thought, every passive and fleshly desire that would lead me to compromise or to be distracted from the High calling of Christ, I bring it to your feet to see it nailed on the Cross. And I know that when I do this, I will live in a manner worthy of the calling of Jesus Christ upon my life (Ephesians 4:1 NIV).

They conquered him completely
through the blood of the Lamb
and the powerful word of his testimony.
They triumphed because they did not love and cling
to their own lives, even when faced with death.

Revelation 12:11 TPT