The Desperate Need for Your Little Moments of Integrity

Old Testament prophets often lived out, on a smaller scale, what the entire nation of Israel was about to experience when God poured out judgment. Examples include Ezekiel laying on his side for over a year, bound, as a means of drawing attention to the corporate sins of the nation. During that time, Ezekiel was told by God to “eat it (bread) as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.” God went on to say that He would “break the staff of bread in Jerusalem [and the people of Jerusalem would] waste away for their iniquity.”

Fast forward to now: if you have prophetic gifting, have you ever experienced something or understood something personally that later seemed to apply to others as well? I have, many times. Here are a few of my examples, and how they apply to what we are all experiencing in 2020.

Sword, Famine and Plague: I’ve been seeing these words used together semi-regularly this year. If you’re not familiar with the origin of these three words in this sequence, check out the biblical examples found in Jeremiah 44 and Ezekiel 3, 4 and 7, or Revelation 6:8.

The reason I know about these words is the research I did for a study on the spiritual underpinnings of eating disorder. My researched started way back in 2003, and ultimately became a Bible study and a book which I published in 2007.

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I want to be crystal-clear on this: eating disorder and all mental health issues spring from genetic traits, as well as personal, often traumatic, experiences. Serious mental illness is not caused by sin, but sin can make mental illness worse. And too much sin can lead to anxiety and depression, because actions have often unintended consequences.

People with mental illness and those who do not have mental illness alike are all equally born sinners, capable of sinning. Personal experiences influence personal choices, and often choices I make or others make can be sin, which means you or I choose a way that is not God’s way, usually because my experience or belief system tells me that my choice is right. But reality is that God’s way typically doesn’t make sense unless you are repenting and earnestly seeking Him with your whole self.

Choosing God’s way doesn’t guarantee physical healing of mental illness. I promise You, if personal repentance, Bible study and public confession of sin were the be-all and end-all solution to anxiety and depression, I wouldn’t need to still take medication. I was a speaker for an international ministry for seven years, and in that time, shared my very sinful personal testimony at least twenty times each year. All told, I shared my personal testimony – filled with an honest reflection of the sin that I allowed in my life and what God had to do to get me to wake up and change – regularly, over the span of 10 years. I truly believe that was what God required of me: the personal, public confession of my sin, so I would be fit for being in ministry. My past life choices were reflexes of fear. Everyone makes very different decisions when they choose to respond to challenges with fear than with faith.

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While choosing God’s way doesn’t guarantee physical healing, God’s way leads directly to wholeness, which means that spiritual healing has taken place. I wrote what I did in the book and study because I genuinely wanted to understand what God says about choices that I made that were in conflict with His Word. The most stark example of the conflict between personal choices and God’s Word is in James 3:16: “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.”

Jeremiah and Ezekiel both said that ‘idolatry and adultery’ would lead to sword, famine and plague. God said that those who should love Him with all their hearts, minds and strength were not only idolatrous when they loved something more than Him—and proved that love by their actions—but that these same people were also spiritually adulterous. So if I put anything in the center of my very self that conflicts with God’s law, God says that not only is this idolatry, but it is also adultery. God describes the relationship believers have with Him as like a marriage—not sexually, but so intimate and open that nothing is held back. There is to be total trust between me and God.

My relationship with Christ is supposed to be so central to everything I do, that if I put anything else in that place, God says it’s virtually the same thing, in human relationship terms, as cheating on my husband. My relationship with Him is supposed to be that close, that I don’t hold any secrets back from Him. There are to be no pockets or hidden rooms in my heart where God is not allowed.

God applied those words to the ancient Israelites, but they also apply to modern Christ-followers, because God’s Word is true forever. So if you have an idol, anything you put ahead of God’s law, and you’ve ever made a commitment to Christ, you’re also adulterous. And that’s leading to both personal and national judgments of sword, famine and plague in our nation.

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Please understand: I am not talking about prosperity gospel-based giving and getting. This is about God’s eternal laws around blessings of obedience and curses for disobedience. There is a big difference between the two; again, a difference that has to do with the posture of your heart towards God and the actions that He says He blesses.

Back to my question: has God ever given me experiences that also apply to other scenarios at a much later time? Unquestionably yes.

I believe God led me to this information and conclusions about idolatry and adultery leading to sword, famine and plague not only for 2007, but also for now, or 2020. Prophecy always has a now and yet later aspect, because if it’s really from God, it will have eternal application.

Along with understanding the connection between idolatry and adultery and sword, famine and plague was the understanding of the absolute necessity of personal and church-wide repentance. Many voices are calling for repentance; please do your part to repent from your personal sin, that hidden thing that only God knows about. I’ve had to do this many times. Those little moments of integrity are some of the most important moments in your life, I promise. God sees and knows the heart.

First Peter 4:17 says, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and if it begins first with us, what shall the end be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” Judgment begins with the house of the Lord.

God’s Word speaks so often and thoroughly about the coming difficult times that it is impossible to actually read His Word and avoid the concept. And yes, I believe that we are here, at the front door of tribulation. While there may be a rapture later, I don’t believe that Christ-followers will escape the judgement that’s coming. My conviction from God in this year, from what He has poured into my spirit and the experiences He has allowed, is that I must have courageous communication about the truth, and not shrink back from speaking the truth in the face of lies. This is very difficult for me, because of my significant anxiety, because I want people to like me and hear me. I would appreciate your prayers for my obedience even when I am afraid.

One final thought: the very first time I taught my Bible study, there was a small group of faithful ladies who attended each week. But on the last day, none of the faithful few showed up. I was recording each session, so I taught to an empty room. Sound like anything that’s happened this year?