During my childhood, terrible things happened in my family that caused my heart to become filled with fear and mistrust. By the time I was fifteen years old, I was so unhappy that I had a very pessimistic outlook on life. But then I had a near death experience that turned my heart toward God. Before I had that experience, I didn’t believe in God, but afterward, I not only believed that God exists, I also had a great desire to know Him, although at the time, I had no idea who He was or how to find Him. About six months later, I was invited to a church where I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I immediately knew that Jesus was the one my heart was longing for.
After I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I began to experience some real peace and happiness for the first time in my life. However I continued to struggle with fear and mistrust. I enjoyed reading the Bible, except for the scripture verses where Jesus referred to His Father as, “Your Father who is in heaven.” Though I believed that the Bible is the true word of God, I could not believe that Jesus` Father was a loving father because I had had some very frightening experiences with my earthly father when I was a child, and then he had abandoned me when I was nine years old. These bad experiences had created a fear and distrust of father figures that kept me from being able to accept Him as my Father. But this did not prevent me from believing that Jesus loves me, so my relationship with Jesus continued to grow.
Over the next twenty-six years, Jesus gently and gradually led me through a process of repentance and forgiveness toward my parents, and deliverance and healing from many things that I had suffered as a child. However, even after all of this progress, there were still some areas of my life that continued to be governed by fear and mistrust.
For many years, I fervently prayed that Jesus would make me fearless and faithful. Then in the year 2000, through a dream, Jesus invited me to take His hand and go with Him on a journey home to the heart of God. When I accepted His invitation, Jesus began to lead me along an upward spiritual path that has been both more difficult and more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. As we travelled this steep, narrow way together, He began exposing and delivering me from all the deeply rooted fears and mistrust that were planted in my heart as a child. Along the way, He also revealed the truth about the real nature and character of His Father. In John 8:32-36, Jesus said, “…You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free….Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Through this journey, Jesus, the wonderful Son of God, set me free from fear and from the evil things it produced in my heart. He also healed my heart and filled it with faith, hope and love. Because of this, my view of God has been so completely changed that I was finally able to accept Him as my heavenly Father.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life that brought me home to the heart of God. Now, I have the best, most wonderful, loving Father that anyone could ever have. Now, I can live under the shadow of His wings and abide in His shelter, in His place of rest where I am loved and accepted, secure and protected.
Two years before Jesus invited me to go on this wonderful journey, I received a word from the Lord telling me that a very difficult time would come upon the world in the future during which Christians would need to live according to Psalm 91. At that time, I had no idea what He meant by this because I assumed that all we would need to do is claim the promises of protection contained in Psalm 91. However, once I was able to accept God as my Father and my relationship with Him began to grow and become more intimate, He began to teach me what it means to live according to Psalm 91.
The first thing my Father taught me was that it is wrong to assume that the wonderful promises contained in Psalm 91 can be claimed by anyone who calls themselves a Christian. To prove this, He pointed out that the very first verse in Psalm 91 clearly reveals that these promises apply to those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High God and abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Then He also pointed out that verses two, nine and fourteen reveal some prerequisites that must be met before anyone can dwell in the shelter of God and abide in His shadow. These prerequisites are:
- We need to make God our refuge, our fortress, and our God in whom we trust (verse 2).
- We need to make God our dwelling place (verse 9).
- We need to hold fast to God in love (verse 14).
- We need to know His name (verse 14).
After He pointed these things out to me, I decided to look up the online definition of the words dwell, abide, refuge, fortress, trust and hold fast so that I could gain a better understanding of what these scripture verses mean. According to www.meriam-webster.com/dictionary, the words dwell and abide both mean to live, but the word abide also means to remain stable or fixed in a state; to continue in a place; to accept; to wait for; to endure, and to bear patiently. The definition of the word refuge is a place that provides shelter or protection. A fortress is a large and permanent fortification (something that defends or strengthens). To trust means to have an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed. To holdfast means something to which something else may be firmly secured. I could not find a definition for the word phrase, to know His name, so I asked the Lord what it means and He told me that to know His name means to know the true nature and character of God.
Once the meaning of these words began to sink in, my Father brought the scripture portion from 1 John 4:16-18 to my mind, which says, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
He then explained that the shelter of the Most High God is a place of rest, under His wings, close to His heart. It is the place where perfect love dwells. However, fear cannot live with perfect love because fear is the opposite of faith. This does not mean that God will not protect people from harm if they are afraid, but the shelter of the Most High God is a secret place (Psalm 91:1, King James Version) – a special place that is reserved for those who have an intimate relationship with God. So if, as it was in my case, fear prevents them from being able to believe that God is love and that He loves them, and if their concept of God is distorted so that they are not able to receive God’s love or love and trust Him as they should, then they will not be able to make God their refuge, their fortress, and their God in whom they trust, they will not be able to make God their dwelling place, and they will not be able hold fast to Him in love. Therefore, it would not be possible for them to live under the shadow of His wings, close to His heart.
In June of 2020, my Father told me that the difficult time He spoke to me about back in 1998 had begun. Then, on August 16, 2021, He spoke the following word to me:
“Fear is rising in the world and it will continue to rise. Fear is your worst enemy!
You must not allow fear to enter your heart. The devil is the author of this fear,
but I am using it to draw My people under My wings, into the shelter of My love
IF they will run to Me,
IF they will put their faith, hope and trust in Me,
IF they are willing to let go of the world and make ME their refuge,
their fortress and their God in Whom they trust.
I am also using this fear to draw the hearts of mankind to Myself.
My people must combat fear and overcome it in
order to live according to Psalm 91.”
Oh children of God, I implore you to heed this word and surrender your heart fully to God!
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