Echoes From Zion

Back when we lived in Oklahoma, my husband and I would occasionally turn on the TV to find a local minister who was one of the angriest people we had ever seen. He didn't shout. He didn't yell. But the words he spoke were filled with venom. He would speak to the women in the congregation and call them dogs, Jezebels, and worse. He would refer to his congregation as idiotic and stupid. It was almost comical on one hand because it seemed so unreal, so absolutely absurd. But in all seriousness, we would watch, realizing that this was no laughing matter: this man had a sizable congregation who was repeatedly being beaten up all in the name of the 'prophetic edge.' For years, the church body at large was like that Oklahoma congregation. We sat under a venomous teaching that told us prophetic ministry was brash, in your face, and terrifying. I know personally, growing up in a small Pentecostal church, that whenever a visiting minister was speaking at my church, I sat in the

We are so blessed to be living under the New Covenant. No longer do we approach God with the blood of goats and bulls. No longer do we have a weak representative who goes to God on our behalf. No longer do we only have access into His presence once a year (See Hebrews 7:27-28, 8:7-13, 10:19-22). Because of the blood of the New Covenant, we all are made priests unto God, accessing His presence day and night with confidence, no longer bound by laws written on stone, but by the law of the Spirit written on our very nature (Romans 6-8).  What a day to be alive! There is such grace under this New Covenant that the new testament writers warned us about the license some would say they found in it. Many were boasting in the early apostle's day that they could sin freely because God's grace had covered them. This is why Paul penned such truths as, "Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Certainly not!...How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?&q

I love to spend time in the woods. With the branches reaching the heights and the canopies all around me, the beauty I see makes my heart feel alive. There are many reasons to love the woods: the smell of the forest, the crunch of leaves beneath my feet, the rocks, the moss, and the critters scampering about. But above all of these qualities, there is one reason why I love the woods: God taught me to hear his voice here. As often as I could, when I was young, I would venture into the sanctuary of my wooded backyard, climb onto my swing set , and lift my song with the trees that surrounded me up to my Father. It was here that my heart was first moved to know Him; to know the one that made such beauty all around. I would swing back and forth, back and forth, keeping the motion in rhythm with my love songs. One song that I sang over and over was a song called, "The Voice of God". The words of the chorus went like this: I hear His voice every time I hear a newborn baby cry, wh