BrownGirlinTheRing

Always learning. Always paying it forward. Always grateful. Lost but now Found.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@altinekasre1 He is the same but my relationship with him isn’t, my knowledge of him isn’t. I’m discovering more of His awesomeness every single day and I realize how infinite He is. It is a love affair that I’ll never get bored of 🤍

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@TevinMacharia I don’t think it matters. Many Christian saints were burnt alive. No matter how we die, whether we are buried or cremated or fed to the lions, we will rise again 🙌🏼

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@archie_lochie Doubting God’s perfect intentions.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

When I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, my internal world completely changed.

The world outside was exactly the same but my reaction changed. I’m just happy for no reason, filled with true gratitude, free from worry, people are lovable and the every creation is beautiful. I never thought this was possible.

This is the complete opposite of detachment - strong attachment to everything but in a beautiful wholesome way. I love this kingdom, it’s a happy & loving place 🤍

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@laranachico @John316apologia My friend, there is no one more real than Jesus in my life today. This is my experience and truth, nothing in the world can change that. I want you to meet Him, there is no way that you won’t fall madly in love. May you encounter God 🙌🏼🙏🏼

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

There are so many levels of prayer and most of us don’t even scratch the surface. I have experienced prayer where there were zero words, spoken or unspoken. It was just a stay of awe and gratitude and I haven’t reached a higher or more intimate prayer state but I’m sure there is.

Silent prayers are beautiful and expected. How can we pray without ceasing without being in silent communication with Him?

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@altinekasre1 Resting

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@archie_lochie The Holy Spirit was very present in teaching me when I finally decided to read the book. I don’t think it is contradictory.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@JesusSaves1500 Why debate theology? Read the Psalm 23 and get into a relationship with God 💗

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

They had their own ideas of what the Messiah would be and Jesus did not fit it. Anna & Simeon just knew when they held a baby in their hands. How?

Sometimes we think we know because we have all the knowledge but God keeps showing us to “not lean on our own understanding”. Lean on Him, He will show. The Pharisees who did not believe clearly did not have a relationship with God.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

The Rich Man & Lazarus is not really about being rich or poor. God blessed many people in Scripture with great wealth.

It is about what wealth can never hide: the condition of the heart.

Jesus paints the contrast brutally. Purple and fine linen > a body covered in sores. Feasting every day > begging for scraps.

And Lazarus wasn’t suffering somewhere far away.

He was at the rich man’s gate.

The rich man had to pass him to enter his own home. Every day he saw suffering close enough to touch, and every day he walked past it.

Then they die.

“The rich man also died and was buried.”

But Lazarus? Jesus mentions no burial. He simply says the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.

The man nobody seemed to see on earth was seen by heaven.

Then everything reverses. The man who feasted is begging for a drop of water. Lazarus, who begged for scraps, is being comforted.

And between them is a great chasm that cannot be crossed.

That chasm stayed with me.

Because perhaps the distance we find in eternity begins with the distance we choose on earth.

We distance ourselves from God because He is inconvenient, takes time, or simply isn’t our priority. We distance ourselves from people because their suffering isn’t our problem. We build comfortable little worlds around ourselves and walk past Lazarus until eventually we don’t even see him.

Maybe the rich man had been building that chasm his entire life.

Finally, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his five brothers. Surely if they see a dead man return to life, they will repent.

Abraham says no.

“If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

And there is the warning hidden inside the story.

Someone would rise from the dead.

Jesus.

And still people would refuse Him.

There is ignorance, and there is arrogance. Ignorance can be changed by truth. Arrogance can stare directly at truth and still choose the lie.

God gives us Scripture. Warnings. Mercy. People at our gate. Again and again, opportunities to turn around.

But we can harden our hearts until nothing is enough.

Not suffering.
Not Scripture.
Not miracles.

Not even the son of God rising from the dead.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@FireFromHeaven7 Put on the armor of God & fight people

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@JesusSavesUs777 I try to be connected all day, showing love and gratitude especially when I smile or feel joy which is very often these days 💗

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@LaurenWitzkeDE Keep writing to us 🤍

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

Saul had already given in to pride, people pleasing and jealousy. It’s like Pharoah’s heart.

If we desire is to be more holy, we’ll encounter ministering spirits. If we have opened the portal to evil, we’ll encounter tormenting spirits. It’s starts with us and the posture of our heart.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@Banacubana_ This 🙌🏼

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

“There before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”
Revelation 7:9

“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Philippians 2:10–11

Most people are ignorant not evil. We must believe & intercede that God will meet them & reveal himself to them. Let’s not claim to know the mind of our God and the boundaries of His grace & love.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]




The Lost Son - Part 3

The Obedient Son

Jesus’ parables always seem to have an Easter egg hidden in them. There is the obvious story, the one you see immediately. And then, when you sit with it and meditate on it a little deeper, He shows you something that was there all along. Something you somehow missed. And when you finally see it, you light up.

I feel like the other son is the Easter egg of this parable.

This is the good son. The obedient one. The one who stayed. The one who, in his own words, had been “slaving” for his father and had never disobeyed him.

I recognize this older son because this is who I used to be as a Christian.

I worked hard and did my best to be obedient. I went to church. I filled myself with knowledge. I tried to do the right things.

But I did not know the heart of my Father.

I was in His house, but I did not have a relationship with Him. I thought I was living as a son, but I was behaving like a servant.

And that is what makes the older son’s story so tragic.

He had spent his entire life with his father, yet he had learnt so little from him. He was nothing like him.

Because if he had known his father’s heart, he would have run to his brother too. He would have welcomed him home. He would have rejoiced because someone he loved, someone who was lost, had finally come back.

Instead, he was angry.

His response was painfully worldly: How can you celebrate this guy? Look at what he did to you. Look at what he wasted. Look at all the grief he caused. And after everything I have done for you, you have never celebrated me like this.

He had obeyed his father without ever becoming like his father.

And suddenly, the parable is no longer just about the son who left home.

It is also about the son who never left and was lost anyway.

Jesus had just said the same thing in the parable of the lost sheep:

Luke 15:7 (NIV)
“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

The younger son knew he was lost. That realization brought him home.

The older son did not know he was lost.

And perhaps that made him even harder to find.

Jesus keeps talking about the Kingdom of God.

The King’s children are not merely taught to obey the King. They know Him. They have a relationship with Him. They have access to Him. They learn His heart. And slowly, they begin to become like Him.

Are we slaves of the King, or are we His sons and daughters?

We can become so focused on working for God that we never learn to walk with Him.

We can spend our whole lives in the Father’s house and still live like servants.

The goal is never just to obey the Father.

It is to know him and become like Him.

[BrownGirlinTheRing @browngi41399963]

@w_bitterman Yes and I’ve come to expect them these days. The closer you move towards God, the more you start becoming aware of our ability to connect & experience in spirit. I would have laughed at this two years ago but one moment has changed me so deeply, there’s no going back.