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A Workman Is Worthy of His Hire

by Del Hungerford

There are several scriptures that relate to the phrase “a workman is worthy of his hire.” To name a few: Luke 10:7, 1 Timothy 5:18, Mathew 10:10, Leviticus 19:13, and Deuteronomy 24:15. CLICK HERE to read those scriptures in Bible Gateway.  Consider looking at each scripture in a variety of translations. Depending on your religious paradigm, the interpretations will vary.

Here’s the issue with our standard belief system concerning people getting paid, specifically to “minister.” For some odd reason, we seem to have it in our minds that since “freely you’ve received – freely give.” This scripture comes from Matthew 10:18. CLICK HERE to read a variety of translations in Bible Hub. I encourage you to read those translations before looking at the definitions below. Once you’ve done that, look at the original Greek in Bible Wheel. CLICK HERE for that information. Here is a synopsis of those definitions.

  • FREELY: δωρεαν dorean {do-reh-an’} without a cause, in vain, for nought, freely, undeservedly
  • RECEIVED: λαμβανω lambano {lam-ban’-o} receive, take, have, catch. To take, to take with the hand, lay hold of, any person or thing in order to use it, to take up a thing to be carried, to take upon one’s self, to take in order to carry away. Without the notion of violence, i,e to remove, take away. To take what is one’s own, to take to one’s self, to make one’s own. To claim, procure, for one’s self. To associate with one’s self as companion, attendant – of that which when taken is not let go, to seize, to lay hold of, apprehend. To take by craft (our catch, used of hunters, fisherman, etc.), to circumvent one by fraud. To take to one’s self, lay hold upon, take possession of, i.e. to appropriate to one’s self. Catch at, reach after, strive to obtain. To take a thing due, to collect, gather (tribute). To take, to admit, receive. To receive what is offered, not to refuse or reject. To receive a person, give him access to one’s self. To regard any one’s power, rank, external circumstances, and on that account to do some injustice or neglect something. To take, to choose, select. To take beginning, to prove anything, to make a trial of, to experience. To receive (what is given), to gain, get, obtain, to get back.
  • GIVE: διδωμι didomi {did’-o-mee} grant, put, show, deliver, make. 1) to give 2) to give something to someone of one’s own accord to give one something, to his advantage. To bestow a gift. To grant, give to one asking, let have. To supply, furnish, necessary things. To give over, deliver. To reach out, extend, present. To give over to one’s care, entrust, commit. Something to be administered. To give or commit to some one something to be religiously observed. To give what is due or obligatory, to pay: wages or reward. To furnish, endue. To give, to cause, profuse, give forth from one’s self. To give, hand out lots. To appoint to an office. To cause to come forth, i.e. as the sea, death and Hell are said to give up the dead who have been engulfed or received by them. To give one to someone as his own. As an object of his saving care. To give one to someone, to follow him as a leader and master. To give one to someone to care for his interests. To give one to someone to whom he already belonged, to return 4) to grant or permit one. To commission.

Let’s take this scripture and reword it a little and see if that changes the meaning. Here’s the original in the NIV: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

Now, let’s replace the words freely, receive and give with another translation that might explain the scripture a bit better. “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Undeservedly you have laid hold of; undeservedly deliver.” There is nothing in any of the above definitions that points toward receiving pay for services rendered. There is no hint of that anywhere! On the other hand, when looking at the scriptures in the first paragraph, there is clear evidence that a workman is truly worthy of his hire. Bottom line, when people provide a service, pay them what they’re worth. If you don’t agree, go somewhere else.

Example time!

With that, we move onto a story. Many reading this know that I’m a musician and create music for the purposes of it being therapeutic. In addition, I create exercises and “practice” opportunities (available HERE and HERE) for those on a journey of Kingdom maturity. As a music creator and teacher, these materials BOTH minister to people AND provide an income for me. In the minds of some, I should be giving out these materials for free. I get that request (only from Christians) on the Healing Frequencies Music website, especially those who really want a particular album but can’t pay for it. In fact, Christians tend to be the cheapest and want something for nothing. The only rude correspondence to date has come from those who say they are Christians – 100% of the time. What does this say about the Christian community as a whole? We've done ourselves no service to the rest of the world when we act like this. 

I see some strange attitudes when it comes to Christian conferences as well. Conferences aren’t cheap to host. People fail to realize that renting a building, purchasing supplies, and paying service providers costs money. There’s this paradigm of “God will provide” so you should just let us in for free. I was at a conference where a group of women all wanted a teaching set. They agreed to pool their resources so they could purchase the whole set (as a download) and share it among themselves. In other words, the woman who purchased it would then send a copy of the downloads to the other women so they’d all have their own copy. I watched this play out for a bit while they discussed it and eventually asked a simple question, “Do you think that’s a good trade?” Long story short… after some further discussion, they decided not to go through with it. How do you feel about their discussion?

When you do a job, you’re providing of form of “ministry” to someone whether it be fixing a vehicle, cutting hair, giving money to the teller at the bank for a deposit, etc. That person is doing something for you that you can’t do yourself. So, he/she is ministering to your needs. To understand more of why I say that, consider reading my article about ministry vs. jobs. You'll find it under the blog posts.

From what I’m reading in Matthew 10:8, it doesn’t direct any meaning toward providing services for free. There aren’t scriptures that seem to point to that interpretation either (unless I’m missing one) but there ARE plenty of scriptures that address being paid what you’re worth. Honestly, I think this concept of providing services for free has only been around for 100 years or so. People think Jesus was poor so Christians should be poor, too. I'm not sure when they received that memo but I don't find scriptural references to support that opinion or mindset. 

The topic of a workman being worthy of his (or her) wages intermingled with the “freely receive, freely give” concept has messed up some people because we tend to swallow what’s preached at us – hook, line, and sinker. We haven’t been responsible for our own spiritual growth because we allow what pastors teach us as “thus sayeth the Lord.” We seem to have no problem paying a pastor… well…  most of the time. They tend to live on next to nothing and have to get a second job in order to make ends meet while we demand their attention to “fix” issues in our lives that we could often fix ourselves by putting at bit of effort into a good solution. This includes Christian counseling, which I had first-hand experience during marriage counseling. What’s the point if we’re not going to do what’s suggested?

Here’s the thing…. when you pay for something, you have ownership in/of it. When you don’t pay, you have zero ownership unless the giver chooses to turn over the ownership to you. A gift is a choice by the giver, not the recipient. 

I was at another conference where one of the speakers kept coming up to the booths saying, “You’ll give me one of those for free?” It was more of a demand than a request. This is all about trading. When you trade, you’re exchanging one thing for another. We can have good trades and bad trades. Much of that depends on our attitude in the midst of the trade. If there’s an expectation that something will be free, that’s a bad trade. Each vendor went ahead and gave this speaker something for free because he kept bugging us. Was that a good trade on his part? I venture to say that it wasn't. 

The Bible also states that we’ll reap what we sow. If we sow bad trades, we’ll reap bad trades. If we have expectations that things will be free because we believe they should be, then we’re not operating with honor or good character. That’s also a bad trade. A good trade involves putting something of value towards what you desire. When you do it that way, you own it. When it comes with an expectation, that’s of no value because it dishonors the giver. Let the giver make the choice to freely give.

Where Does This Lead Us?

We now get back to the main point at the beginning – a workman is worthy of his hire. That’s plain and simple with little room for misinterpretation. When reading the various versions of the Bible on this subject, there does seem to be uniform agreement. That’s not the case with Matthew 10:8. Hmmm…. I find that interesting but will leave that up for your own pondering as to why that is.

The key here is that in order to make a good trade, both the giver and recipient should be on the same page. If you find something overpriced, then don’t moan and whine about it. (There is cheese to go with that whine.) Go find something within your price range that works for you. This includes counseling, receiving services of any kind, attending conferences, etc. If we simply don’t have the funds, then let’s not put it on the giver to lower the price enough that we can have what they’re offering. This might be a growing opportunity for each of us to learn how to exercise our faith muscle and see how God provides.

Why expect someone to meet our needs and desires when we can use a situation as an opportunity to sit with Jesus and discuss His best plan? When we learn to look at our situations through the eyes of Yahweh, we often have a completely different picture of the process and any solutions that go with it. As we learn to move from our personal expectations and paradigms to those of Yahweh, we grow in character. I encourage all those reading this to get outside old religious boxes of expecting things to be free just because of a perception that it’s “ministry related.”

For many of us, what we do replaces a 9 to 5 job. We have training in our fields and offer a high quality product. Why should we be expected to give our product and services for free? That attitude is not honoring the God-given gifts of the giver. Even when something is offered for free, it’s “good form” to sow into that person or ministry. What it does is release more blessings over you! It opens the door for more!

Honestly, it took me some time to work through a bad paradigm concerning this topic. The “freely receive; freely give” Bible verse was used as a weapon to get me to give things to people. This included time, service to a ministry, and physical items or services. It’s a rampant problem in the church, especially for those in the artistic community. Why conference hosts often don’t pay the worship team is beyond me. Those leading worship tend to spend more time on the stage than guest speakers.

It seems that we have our priorities a bit messed up concerning two things: 1) the definition of a worker, and 2) our expectation that ministry should be free. I believe that as we honor those who meet our needs and desires (via our pocketbook), we’ll see more breakthrough in our finances.

May you be blessed in your giving and receiving!

Del

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Angels, Entities, and Demons – Oh My!

by Del Hungerford

In the 1980’s, I was a college student. That’s when the whole deliverance ministry was going strong. We’d sit in a room and take turns going through deliverance. People would puke, cough up junk, choke, wriggle on the floor, and do a bunch of other weird stuff when getting “delivered.” Most of the time, I sat and watched, simply observing. One time, they had me come forward. After praying over me, I was instructed to start coughing so that any demon inside of me would come out. I felt nothing so I did nothing. Needless to say, it was the last time I attended that church. I felt there was more to Christian living than constantly looking for demons.

I moved to a new church where we still talked about deliverance but the focus wasn’t on getting everyone delivered every service. We still had books upon books on understanding the strategy of the enemy to help us deal with opposition and things that plagued our lives. If we did something wrong, it was “the devil made me do it!” We still looked for a demon under every rock. Who knows why but we did. For me, none of it made sense so I basically blew it off and went about my business. After all, I was a college student and I had school on my mind. What the enemy did, wasn’t on the forefront of my daily life.

Fast forward through the years… Every church I attended taught what I call “traditional warfare.” That usually involved looking at an entity and stating, “In the name of Jesus, I command you to ______!” There were books on how to do that, too. I actually got a pretty decent handle on kicking the enemy’s butt. After all, it is scriptural. I remember times when I felt under attack, I’d pray in tongues for hours and get a few words in English every once in a while saying “In the name of Jesus ______.” So, I know there’s power and authority in those words.

Eventually, I was introduced to the teachings of Smith Wigglesworth. There’s a quote on his site that says, “A deep intimacy with his heavenly Father and an unquestioning faith in God’s Word brought spectacular results and provided an example for all true believers of the Gospel.” Years later, as I look at this quote, the words “a deep intimacy” stick out to me.

It was out of intimacy with Father that he functioned. I believe he lived in the presence of Father and brought back to earth the authority he received there. My pastor frequently retold the story of a night Wigglesworth was sleeping. Something woke him up and after looking down at the foot of his bed, he saw the devil standing there. This didn’t phase Wigglesworth at all. He simply said, “Oh, it’s you!” and went back to sleep. He felt secure enough in his identity in Christ that nothing the enemy did phased him. It inspired me, reminding me of the scripture that says “Your adversary, the devil, walks about AS a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). If Wigglesworth could function this way, so could I. Although I didn’t know HOW to do it, I set out learning.

This leads me to the next bit of information when a friend told me about “terraforming.” It’s actually a term used by NASA to describe changing atmospheres from ones that are hostile to the human race, to ones that are hospitable. For a Christian, this is about the Love of God changing a spiritual atmosphere through repentance – from hostile to hospitable. The key word here is “repentance.” I listened to a video by Scott and Shari Norvell, who had the original vision for spiritual terraforming. In one of the examples, Shari talked about being in a park with her daughter. Another child was pitching a fit and was uncontrollable. Then, other kids started acting up. Shari’s daughter (about 8 years old at the time) made a comment asking if they could terraform. Right there, they identified something on the land (through asking Father) what could be repented for. After their prayer, the kids on the playground went back to their normal behavior. I knew at that time, there was something about this and it had to do with repentance. It’s a far cry from what I’d done before! Again, I was intrigued.

Now, we fast forward a few more years when I started hearing people such as Ian Clayton, Mike Parsons, Grant and Sam Mahoney, and others talk about warfare coming from the kingdom realms to the earth. Again, I was intrigued. Their “style” of warfare, provided some practical pictures in my mind of what that might look like. So, hang on with me here while I explain this one out a bit.

When we look at war in general and read about it in history, at one time, armies would literally come face to face with one another. They’d line up on opposite sides of the battlefield and go at it. I think the best example of how this looks is found in the “Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe” from the Chronicles of Narnia. At the end of the movie, as predicted, both sides line up and start shooting arrows. The arrows really don’t do much. Then birds fly dropping firebombs. That does a bit more. It’s when they start using the trebuchet that damage begins to be apparent. In the movie, Aslan comes in just in the nick of time and it’s his breath, breathing life into the trees that turns the tide of the battle. It’s unexpected to the enemy and they freak out a bit. They all die or run away and the movie ends with the daughters of Eve and sons of Adam being crowned kings and queens.

Let’s take a look at this scenario from another angle. As most everyone knows, we’ve had some major wars. Armies are constantly trying to find methods of one-upping the enemy. It wasn’t until World War II with the bombing of Hiroshima that there was a certain awe about warfare. The key to all wars? The winner is usually the one who can go the highest. The one with the best air power and bombs generally has the upper hand. Think about that for a moment.

How many of you have read Rick Joyner’s book “The Final Quest?” It’s part of a trilogy invloving a vision he had. CLICK HERE to see all three books in that trilogy. What I found interesting is that in order to escape the enemy, Joyner had to always go higher. On the top of the mountain, the enemy couldn’t get him. At the bottom, he could see Christians being vomited upon and badly beaten up by hordes of demons who were actually at a higher level. As people in the vision got a clue to climb the mountain, they began to escape the clutches of the enemy. If they didn’t go higher, there was no relief. That thought alone struck me for many years. Again, I didn’t know what to do with it. It literally had to marinate within me for a few years until I had my own revelation about it.

The main theme here in the natural and spiritual is that in order to win a war, you have to go higher. Everything in the natural is a mirror of what’s in the supernatural. It’s a matter of learning how to function out of the supernatural so we can bring that revelation from heaven and release it in earth. This is when my journey really took a major turn. I had to see and understand this fact before I could do the next part.

One of the first teachings I listened to from Ian Clayton talked about angels. I don’t remember the name of the teaching but if you click on his name, you’ll be redirected to his website. Type in “angels” in the search box and the teaching should pop up. I was totally overjoyed after hearing that teaching. Finally, I had answers to why certain things bugged me about deliverance and why Christians seem to always get beat up. In a nutshell, we spend so much time talking about demons but very little about angels. Why is that? Well, I guess you need to get the teaching to fully understand it. What struck me is that behind every demon is an angel, an angel from the kingdom realms of God. It’s what we choose to look at that makes the most difference. Shabbam!!! Now, we’re talking!

Smith Wigglesworth obviously understood the power of ignoring the enemy's antics. Why else would he tell the enemy to take a hike? Think about it. What grabs our attention? He's like that child who tattles on his friend. All he wants is to get our attention off what we’re doing and onto him. It’s that whole roaming about AS a roaring lion bit that the enemy tries with us. If we’re gullible, we take the bait. He only gets what we give him. Sorry friends, I really don’t want to pay attention to demons and Ian’s teaching helped me solidify that. 

Ian also brings up another good point. All the teachings we’ve had over the years about deliverance are not wasted – it’s practice. But, that only gets us so far. I don’t remember doing any spiritual warfare that involved repentance up to this point. As we mature, there’s more expected of us. If we get stuck in those places, we don’t grow. Maybe a key to where we are is to look and see if we’re stuck with certain things in our lives. But, that requires a good HONEST look. How many of us are really able to do that?

A quick synopsis of what I learned...

Warfare is necessary to get rid of stuff that we don’t need. However, it's not the warfare we've been taught. I now call it the "sonic warfare of Love."  Forgiveness appears to be a major key and going to a higher level definitely gives us the upper hand. A higher level here is in our temple, at the top of our personal mountain, and seated in Christ. That visual should bring about a nice picture of the "going higher" piece. 

I honestly don’t think it should take hours, days, or even months to walk someone through deliverance – in most cases. There will always be exceptions to everything. In general, if we don’t deal with stuff in our lives, we will get beat up. You know, those pesky little hidden sins that no one knows about but you? Or, anger, bitterness, and strife, along with their cuddle buddies.. If we leave doors open to these things, then we’re gonna get hammered. No need to fear! Repentance is here! The moment we repent (do an about face and go the other direction), it totally disarms any demon. It literally takes all the power from it. We own the sin, repent, and then renounce all ties to it. Then, we take it, nail it to the cross and walk it through to the other side where it’s covered by the blood of Jesus. Repentance often includes doing so on behalf of our generational lines and what’s gone in them that’s affected us. A scriptural example? Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1) rebuilds the wall to Jerusalem. Prior to doing so, he repented on behalf of his ancestors. The sin was not his but he repented to cleanse the land.

If you’ve read my book “Accessing the Kingdom Realms,” there are many instances where I stop and repent right in the middle of what I’m doing while I’m in the presence of Father (or Jesus). I’ve gone to the mobile court so many times to take care of my sin (or on behalf of my ancestor’s sin) that I’ve lost count! Some things that have affected me are not truly my personal sin but, I carry the effect of that in my DNA. Scientists are now discovering that junk DNA we all have is where these kinds of things are carried. Repentance is a long process. As part of warfare, I believe the results are better. NOTE: As time goes on, there are other ways besides the mobile court. It's a great starting point but you may eventually find different methods of dealing with an issue, especially as the Lord directs you.

Angels are there to assist us. Remember that right behind every demon is an angel. Now, if you don’t believe me, go look it up in scripture. How many times did angels come to help people? Uh, too many to name. So, if they can engage with angels in scripture, so can we. When I see a demon now, I look a little further and see the angel that’s there for me. I ignore the demon and welcome the angel and let him assist. Often times, I need to repent first. Then, the angel can do what’s necessary. That varies upon the situation, which I won’t go into here.

Here’s the scoop… when we stop fighting the enemy on his turf and go higher (dealing with it from heaven to earth), we’re going to have the kind of results we need as long as repentance is part of the equation. If we do the warfare standing right across from the enemy, chances are, we’re going to get beat up. Sorry, but I want no part of that. When we stop giving the enemy credit for every little thing, we’ll also be better off. Sometimes, it’s our own stupidity that causes opposition, too. There’s really no formula but I have found the following is a general starting point:

  • When something goes haywire, get in that place of peace and rest. Go into the presence of God and deal with everything from the midst of His presence. Get into the center of His name. If you want to know more about that, listen to Ian’s teaching titled “The Four Faces of God.” Again, go to his website and type in that title in the search bar. It should come up.
  • When an accusation comes (true or false), I usually own it even when I know it’s false. The reason? It disarms the enemy and takes away his power. At that point, he becomes what my pastor used to call a “powder puff lion.” Imagine the True Judge taking care of him.
  • Go through the repentance process first, even if you don’t think you did anything. If you didn’t, someone in your family line probably did. We carry the memory of all that our ancestors did in our DNA. For more of that, you’ll need to read some of my blog posts on Healing Frequencies Music. Ian also has some great teachings on DNA.
  • Do not look to fight the enemy on his territory! Commanding things to go in the Name of Jesus is fine… for a while. But, if we’re not doing that from our position IN Christ, IN heaven, seated WITH Him in those heavenly places, we’re on the same level as the enemy. Chances are, you’ll get the tar beat out of you.
  • Worship always sends the enemy fleeing. If you don’t know what to do, put on some music that brings you into the presence of God. Worship brings light. Light dispels the darkness. If you need some music suggestions, try some of my albums: I AM, Into His Presence, and Deep Calls to Deep. They are all instrumental and perfect to pray in tongues to. Praying in tongues is a must as a part of spiritual battle. Again, Ian has teachings on this, too.
  • If you’re looking for music to help during repentance or DNA cleansing work, consider the album, 528 Creative DNA.

With that, this is already a marathon post. More will come on this subject but for now, this is a start in helping us understand that our system of warfare is changing. If you’ve done something for so long and it’s not quite working like it used to, then that’s the first clue something’s wrong in River City.

Here’s another clue… If you’ve done deliverance the usual warfare way (commanding and demanding) and you’re constantly under attack in your personal life and/or in your health, there could be something missing. There appears to be three key ingredients: 1) Being in the center of God’s name, in that place of being IN Him (intimacy with Him), 2) Repentance of some kind, and 3) Getting on “higher” ground. A fourth likely ingredient involves allowing our spirit (not our soul) to preside over us. Read the posts about your personal mountain, gateways, the throne of your life, and sitting in Perfect Love. 

It’s all about intimacy with Father and through that intimacy, we can deal with those things that keep us from moving forward.

Blessings to all of you and may you walk in total freedom from all things that would try to hold you back from fulfilling your destiny!

 

Del

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What if You Were Given a Million Dollars!?

by Del Hungerford

In a 2016 Time Magazine article, we read about how lottery winners fared after winning those millions. What about people who receive a sizable inheritance? I’ve read horror stories of families fighting over inheritances, many often contesting wills. Add theft into that and what do you have? It’s all about money and people wanting more of it. So, what would you do if you were given a million dollars?

Papa has been teaching me over the last few years about stewardship with money. Honestly, most of my life, I’ve not been good with it. Because of that, I was in debt up to my eyeballs. And, like many people, I was living paycheck to paycheck. Even after several times around the mulberry bush, I still didn’t get it. Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way.

Let’s go back to the lottery winners for a moment. I’ve heard that over time, many of them struggle and end up broke within a few years. The Time Magazine article expounds upon that so I’ll let you read it. I’ll make a couple of observations here. First off, people who are not used to having a lot of money have no clue what to do once they get it. Secondly, because people think things (cars, houses, grown-up toys, etc.) are a big deal, their focus is on the “now,” not on the future. And thirdly, everyone around those people reveals their greed, which often surprises the lottery winners. People’s true colors tend to be displayed when it involves lots of money.

I was listening to a teaching by Marios Ellinas from a donference in New Zealand with Ian Clayton. The teaching itself is part of the conference set and is titled “Access.” What struck me about this teaching is how honor is so important in dealing with finances. I hadn’t thought of it in that way before. Yet, I think back to how I have dealt with finances. Sometimes, I walked in honor but other times, it was fear that ruled.

In one teaching, I received revelation that might answer one of the reasons our financial system functions the way it does as well as why we each struggle with finances. The most important aspect of this is to look at the spiritual laws set in place. It doesn’t matter if you’re a believer or not. Once you tap into these spiritual laws, you reap the benefits of them. This might be why what I call "pre-believers" seem to do better than believers. Once you tap into those spiritual laws, God isn't a respector of persons so He honors those who understand and use the laws. 

Two of those twelve laws include the “Law of Sowing and Reaping” along with “the Law of Abundance.” There are 12 spiritual laws that Ian Clayton speaks about but I can no longer find that teaching. Each law carries a precedent that’s been set into the foundation of the universe. For example, let’s look at the Law of Sowing and Reaping. In our world, we often call that “karma.” What is karma? It’s when you do something, you get a return on that investment (good or bad). More often than not, karma has a negative connotation. Not long ago, there was a video shared on Facebook of some driver doing illegal and stupid things on a busy highway. Within a few seconds, he loses control of the vehicle and wrecks his truck. And, it was all caught on tape by a driver watching the whole situation unfold. The video was labeled “instant karma.”

News flash #1: The twelve laws operate whether we believe them or not. That includes when we don’t know about them. But, people who understand them can learn how they operate and then tap into the benefits of those laws. The twelve spiritual laws are like the law of gravity where it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re bound by that law.

Do you remember the parable of the talents? (Matt. 25:14-30) Marios discusses that story in the “Access” teaching. He also quotes the scripture from Luke 12:48 where it says “to whom much is given, much is required.” As he was talking, I got a mini-download or and understanding of how this is functioning in our society. (Drum roll please…)

I hear so much in the news about how the United States sets up laws that allow the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. There seems to be a lot of blame shifting in the political arena of how and why this happens. Let me propose to you an alternate reason… at least one of the twelve laws reasons. It has to do with wrong mindsets. When you look at the the story in Matthew 25 where the master goes away and leaves his servants with money to invest it, we see what each of those servants does. Upon return, the master gives the servants the same measure of what they received from those investments. In a nutshell, the master asked them to do business for him while he was away. As a boss, wouldn’t you reward the person who brought you the most money with more responsibility? Uh… heck yeah! I don’t know of anyone who would do that for the person who didn’t invest anything.

Our society has bowed down to a spirit of poverty. I’m killing a sacred cow here but I believe in order to get past it, we need to see it for what it is. Look at the number of people on various forms of assistance – assistance that requires nothing from the recipient in return for money and/or food they don't pay for. Until we get over that mindset of allowing others to do for us, it will be very difficult to step into the gravitational pull of the truths in the twelve spiritual laws. The more we go around saying “I can’t do that because I don’t have the money,” the more we stay in that mindset. I’ve actually done this next thing myself, not even realizing it… “I would love to go to dinner with you but I only have $10 in my bank account.” My conscious mind was thinking “I just want them to know I can’t go to dinner” but my unconscious mind was actually saying “Maybe they’ll buy me dinner if I tell them how much I have.” This seems to be an innocently honest situation but after I went back and looked at a couple of these instances, I had to repent. Why? Because I was functioning out of a poverty mindset.

For years, I came up short financially. I did OK but because I hadn’t learned how to manage finances, live within my means, and generally use good common sense concerning money, there was never an over abundance. There would be times I’d want to do something special, like attend a conference or go on a retreat when I couldn’t go because of my finances. I admit, I allowed the “poor me” familiar spirit to whisper in my ear. And, I listened.

A poverty mindset often functions out of one or more of the following:

 1) That’s too expensive! No one should ever have to pay that much! 2) Look for the cheapest version of anything they want to buy. 3) Christians should give to other Christians freely. After all, Jesus gave everything away so why shouldn’t we give our services away? 4) When faced with receiving governmental assistance, often stay in that place rather than believe there could be a way out. 5) A belief that if they could just have more finances, everything would be OK. 6) Deep inside, hope that others will care for them. And, the list could go on. This is only a start.

Now, let’s look at the story of the talents a bit more. If you’ll notice, when the master returned, he called his servants asking for a report. Those who knew what to do with the resources, were given more resources because they had something to show for their diligence. The one who didn’t was functioning out of a poverty mindset. Basically, the master rewarded and gave more responsibility to those who brought resources. These servants were functioning out of the twelve spiritual laws. They tapped into a law (maybe without even knowing it) where they understood the protocol of multiplication. It was “I’ll take what I have and make more with it.”

Look at the rich people in the world. Why do they have money? More than likely, many figured out how to tap into spiritual laws set into place from the very beginning. There are those who have a lot of money but are some of the unhappiest people on the earth. Money has done nothing for them probably because their intent was greed, which isn’t a kingdom mindset. The intent of the heart can produce interesting results.

Now, think of how many people you know are near the opposite end of the spectrum, where finances don’t seem to be abundant. If you give these people  money, they haven’t had the practice of managing a lot of finances and eventually lose it, as noted in the article I mention above from Time Magazine.

News flash #2: Until we learn how to manage what we have, it’s going to be difficult to know what to do when we're given more. The reason there’s such a big gap between the lower and middle classes all has to do with mindsets – mindsets about provision. Making laws to help close that gap hasn’t helped people either. The reason? You give people something they don’t understand how to handle and chances are, they’re going to mess it up because they haven’t learned responsibility. We must have a shift in thinking and then practice new mindsets. This involves not listening to familiar spirits that entice us to think the old way.

I’m on this journey in learning how to be responsible with what I currently have so that it opens a door for more… more of Him… more of everything. In this article, I speak out of experience, both the stupid and the smart. Honestly, I had no idea I’d been functioning out of a poverty mindset until about 2013. It was revealed to me during my times with Papa. Even while writing this blog post, I found another area that needed attention. Before going any further, I took a break and repented.

It’s taken me several years to gain freedom of some “stinkin’ thinkin'” about finances. Meanwhile, I’ve had to walk some pretty rough things out. For quite some time, I had very little. I made a choice to get out of debt and put my resources towards that. That also meant that I got rid of all my credit cards and decided if I didn’t have cash, it could wait. I’ve also had to learn to live within my means. Meanwhile, I started spending more time with Papa and gained some strategy on smart ways to increase finances. This was my test to see if I could be given more responsibility. Out of that, Healing Frequencies Music was birthed. I’m learning how to manage that business while continuing to grow in what Father is teaching me.

I have to mention that being a giver is an important factor in understanding the Law of Abundance and the Law of Sowing and Reaping. And, it’s probably one of the only reasons I didn’t completely crash financially, even when I was doing some stupid stuff. When I didn’t have finances, I gave time. I sowed into other’s lives as I believed the Holy Spirit led. I love that Marios talks about honor as part of the equation, too. Marios Ellinas has several books on Amazon so look him up and show him a little love financially!

I truly believe that if we want to close the gap between the rich and poor, we need to help the poor understand The Law of Abundance and The Law of Sowing and Reaping. Giving them free stuff only perpetuates the poverty mentality. We need to get out of our old mindsets and put on the mind of Christ. Until we learn how to use what we have wisely, there’s no way we can be trusted with more. We’ll simply squander it like most of those lottery winners end up doing.

My personal example? Like I said, I’ve done some really stupid stuff financially. After making the decision to change my thinking about provision in general, setting my eyes on the things of the kingdom realms, things finally began to change. I had to do a bunch in the natural to line up with what I was hearing in the spirit…. no more credit cards (unless I could pay them off each month), learn to live within my means, and get rid of the poverty mentality!

Within nine years, almost all my debt (yeah… something about student loans) was paid off. And, I didn’t immediately think “Yippee! I get to go out and buy some things I’ve wanted on more credit.” I started setting money aside, in a savings account and adding to it each month. I put myself on a budget where I have separate checking accounts for various purposes. I have one account that’s for groceries, gas, clothes, little surprises for myself, and other daily expenses. When it’s gone… it’s gone. It’s rare that I borrow from another account to supplement these expenses.

What I find amazing is how I have more money available for use now than I’ve had in several years. And, I make about half the income (because of a job change) than I did before. Try to wrap your head around that one! Here’s a little story from the spring of 2016… I was so excited when I walked out of my accountant’s office completely overjoyed that I could pay her that same day for my 2016 taxes. It’s the first time EVER (since she became my accountant in 1994) that I’ve been able to do this. She thought I was a little too overjoyed but she didn’t understand how much this meant to me. It was freedom in the fact that I could pay a bill all at once and didn’t have to be on a payment plan. It was truly liberating.

The next piece of this equation has to do with giving and honoring those you’re in relationship with. Do you remember what I said above about giving of my time? For me, this is about honor. For several years, I was part of a prophetic training school in Canada. At the end of each year, they have a conference, which I attended. When they asked for volunteers, I jumped in. Yes, we were given free entrance to the event but for me, it was more than that. At one conference, they had a guest speaker who had lots of books to sell. I agreed to take care of all his sales while dealing with my own, since I also had a vendor table. Now, I was only required to work a certain amount of hours to cover my entrance fee. However, I know what it’s like to rotate people in and out of a bookstore at a conference. There has to be some consistency which is probably why the year before, I agreed to be at the registration table through the entire conference. I like things running smoothly and if I can honor those putting on a conference with my time, I’m happy to do it. (Murray Dueck, you are the bomb!)

Long story short… there are many times in my life where I really didn’t have the finances to give to a ministry or minister. But, if I knew that I could do something to help them, I offered my services. I would venture to say that giving of your time is part of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Although I wasn’t operating out of it in one area (because of a poverty mentality), I was in another area. I wanted to give so I gave myself. That in turn has opened doors for me to gain more freedom in the overall area of finances.

Please understand that I’m not pointing anyone out. I’ve been there so the finger points back at me. If you’re living off provision where you depend on other sources (in this world) to meet your needs, you’ll want to get off that merry-go-round in order to see increase. Finances may not be available to give but you can give of yourself. What is it you do that could be of help to someone else? Maybe it’s taking the neighbor kids for an hour or two to play with your own kids while the parents go out to eat. There are always lots of highways that need cleaning up. I’ll venture to say this and sorry if I hit another sacred cow but here it is… If you have time to sit in front of the TV or play games for hours every day, you have time to give of yourself. If there’s a lack of confidence to do anything, consider getting some healing so you can walk in who you’re meant to be.

CONCLUSION:

As I stated before, if people step out of the poverty mentality and align themselves with The Law of Abundance and The Law of Sowing and Reaping, I believe the large gap between financial classes (rich vs the poor) would diminish greatly. It’s all a mindset. The problem? It takes time and most people aren’t willing to walk through the process and give up too easily. Why? Because it requires giving up stuff, including tangible items as well as thoughts and habit patterns we get stuck in. I encourage you not to be one of those people. If this is your tendency, spend time on the Father’s lap in the garden of your heart. It’s from this intimate place where we learn who we are in Christ. If you don’t have a good earthly example of a father, allow healing from those memories to wash through you. If you need some assistance with cleaning stuff up, contact, sign up for mentoring and/or inner healing with someone in the Ekklesia. You'll find that information HERE. 

Blessings to all! I speak freedom from old mindsets concerning finances over everyone who reads this. As paradigms begin to shift, I speak a release of provision!

Del

Posted on

Business From a Kingdom Perspective

by Del Hungerford

We often don’t think about business as being a “kingdom” thing. I’ll have to say, that included me until I actually owned a business. There are many principles, like the laws of physics, that work despite your belief system when it comes to business.

I listened to Ian Clayton’s teaching set titled “Kingdom Business 1” and “Kingdom Business 2” a few times when I first purchased them. I’m finding that it’s good to go back and listen again to teachings after I’ve worked through things. Being prompted this past week to listen again, I “heard” this teaching with a fresh set of ears. Go to www.sonofthunder.com to purchase these MP3 teachings.

At the time of my first listen, I was going through some rough spots financially and had been for quite some time. Much of that was due to my own stupidity, involving my lack of ability to handle money. I did some dumb things but, I also learned from my mistakes. We are often brought to a place where we have to deal with our shortcomings. If we don’t, we stagnate and never seem to move forward. However, we do have the option to stay stuck. It’s all about choices.

To purchase Ian's book about business, CLICK HERE. 

In the “Kingdom Business” teachings, Ian discusses integrity as well as the importance of functioning on the other side of the veil for all business practices. In general, I’m finding that when I don’t go directly into the realm of the kingdom for any business dealings, stuff doesn’t seem to work out quite right. It’s so important that even in the midst of the “yuckies” that go on in our lives, we learn to function from heaven to earth out of a place of rest.

Ian discusses the standard view of the “enemy.” This was not something new to me but for some strange reason, it resonated differently this time. We all think the enemy is the devil. That’s the standard thought, right? Ian makes a passing comment (as he often does) that’s a whiz banger! It’s one of those that grabs you around the throat and demands your attention. Ian said that the enemy is often ourselves. In other words, we can be our own worst enemy. What we think the devil throws at us, it’s not him at all! The devil is chilling out in his own depressing-makeshift-power corner thinking “Ah, there’s another person who’s giving me credit for something I didn’t do.” He then leans back in his chair a bit further with a smug look on his face knowing that he has you right where he wants you. It’s called “deception.”

It’s often our own thoughts and actions that wreak havoc in our lives. Thoughts, intents, and actions carry a frequency that’s released around us to frame what occurs in our lives. This can actually be measured via scientific equipment! You see it in those water experiments where Dr. Emoto spoke negative and positive things over water. He then froze the water and looked at how the ice crystals formed. The pretty images were the positive words. The ugly images? They had hateful or negative things spoken. Here’s a bit of my geekiness sticking out – there have been additional experiments completed under more controlled conditions to show what Dr. Emoto found is accurate. So, the next time something goes haywire, check out what you’ve said over yourself in the season before that.

Here’s an example of how thoughts and intents framed a situation in my life: I would have walked through some physical healing much faster had I not wallowed in the “woe is me” attitude. Things didn’t change until my thought processes shifted concerning a particular illness (while I was married). First of all, sickness is NOT mine. I don’t own it. Yes, there may be something on my body from time to time but it doesn’t belong to me unless I accept it. I knew this, too, but didn’t walk in it. I was too worn down (or so I thought) to believe that I could do anything about it. Enough of that. That’s a whole different blog post topic. Moving right along…

Ian also says that choices become important. Stuff literally can sit in front of your face taunting you with the words, “look at me!” Circumstances tend to encourage us to engage them: it’s a choice. Instead, we should engage love (which is the opposite of fear). In addition, it’s important to step beyond the veil into intimacy with God to learn how to deal with the circumstances from a kingdom perspective. It’s only when I’ve done that, I’m in a place of peace. When we learn to function out of that place of rest, life is so much easier!

Another whiz banger that Ian kind of slipped into the teaching has to do with pleasing man. Our affirmation and approval tends to come from our relationships with people instead of God. Ouch!! That hurt but… think about it. How many times have we each done something and looked to another person to approve what we did? Are we doing things to get accolades from people?

I guess a good barometer to make that determination is… when we give of ourselves (clean the toilets at church, be on the worship team, sign up to be a helper at a conference, etc.) and no one thanks us or notices how hard we’re working, what is our response? If this bothers us, we’re trying to please man.

Let me say this before going any further. This can also work in the opposite direction – it’s called “false humility.” It shows up in people when we compliment them. Have you ever gone up to someone and said “That was so awesome. Thank you!” They then turn around and say, “It was all Jesus.” They then bow their head in a humble gesture. Yes, I’ve done that, too. I think it was mostly because someone told me that was how I was to respond when complimented. Either way, what I’ve learned to do is take the compliments to the trading floors and trade for more love, joy, peace, etc. You’ve heard of “casting your crowns?” That’s what trading is all about. You take all those compliments and positive things that happen in your life and cast them before the throne, trading for more intimacy with the Trinity. Once I started doing that, I noticed some big changes.

What does this have to do with business? Well, everything. Circumstances will happen that you don’t like. You will have many choices to make, and you’ll be granted the opportunity to engage the circumstance or... get on your seat of rest. It’s all about choices and learning what to look at and what to turn your back on. We also have to learn to walk in integrity with our business dealings.

News flash! Many of the Christians I have dealt with in business walk in less integrity than the unbeliever. Why? It’s because we have expectations between Christians. It goes something like this… “I’d like you to do this job for me but, because you’re doing it as unto the Lord, you’re going to give me a better price, right?” Or how about what goes through our mind when dealing with a Christian business owner? Try this scenario (thinking to yourself) – “This person should bless me because I don’t have enough to pay for it. Then, God will use that and bless them in return.”

When I ran a mobile espresso business, I was the highest paying espresso business in town. Plus, even though I often worked harder than the employees, I gave them the tips. The only time I kept any was when there were only two of us and we both worked our butts off. I wanted to bless my workers for giving their time to my business.

In return, I had a couple employees that worked for me for several years, even though I was a seasonal operation and the hours weren’t all that good. I treated them well and that made them want to come back. Well, I think making up cheesy songs for every drink helped a little, too. The customers really enjoyed it, which made them come back each week to see what other antics we’d come up with. I guess when you’ve had 8 shots of espresso by 8:00 in the morning, it opens the possibility for some wackiness.

I love what Ian also said in the Kingdom Business teachings. We are to embrace the circumstance to see what we can learn from it. He even quoted the scripture that I literally had pasted all over my bedroom as a teenager. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). Or, maybe it was “All things work together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Either way, these are two scriptures I stepped into. When we learn to embrace the circumstances asking “Father, what can I learn from this?,” we’ll all be in a much better place.

Have you ever been asked the question, “If you could go back and change anything in your life, what would it be?” Honestly, my answer is “My reactions to things that happened.” And, “I wished I’d made better choices.” No, I wouldn’t change who I was married to. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I could change that. Yes, he was abusive. Yes, I responded in unhealthy ways. This situation encouraged me grow up. It’s all about be thankful IN the situation, not FOR it. (I Thess. 5:18)

Ian discusses a particular difficult business problem that propelled him into a deeper relationship with Yahweh (Hebrew name for God). Out of that relationship, things began to change. That type of action changes attitudes, which changes the frequency of our thoughts, which changes intent, which finally leads to circumstance changes. It’s been the same for me, too. There continues to be some interesting situations in my life. Life happens and you have to deal with it. It’s the “how” we deal with it that makes or breaks us.

Businesses have ups and downs. When we learn to walk in integrity, allow God to lead us through everything in our lives, turn our intents toward our Divine Creator, and watch what comes out of our mouth, things tend to line up. There are spiritual laws put into place. It’s our choice whether to live by them or not.

How do you walk in integrity through business interactions?

 

  • Treat your employees with respect and pay them well.
  • Be giving and do so without an agenda (both bosses and employees).
  • Honor the people you work with and work for. Even when they’re acting like a dork, remember the issue is probably more about them and has nothing to do with you.
  • Be fair and balanced in treatment of ALL employees.
  • Creative a positive atmosphere by bringing heaven to earth.
  • If you’re the consumer doing business with someone who is a Christian, don’t expect their services to be cheaper for you. They, too, have to make a living. Your money is literally a “trade” into what they have to offer you. Pay them what you’d pay anyone else for the same service.
  • As an employee, don’t cheat your time, give 100%, don’t whine and complain every time other workers do something stupid, and don’t complain about the management and/or customers. Instead, go beyond the veil (into the kingdom realms) and see what Father has to say about it.
  • Be prepared to accept responsibility for your actions. Be quick to repent (before the Father) and then establish patterns in your life where change creates positive rather than negative actions and reactions.
  • Feelings? There’s nothing more than feelings? Uh, yeah.. let’s not be led by our feelings. People will frost your buttons so be prepared to take those frustrations before the Father. He’ll show you what to do. Hint – it will probably involve some repentance, either on your behalf or those around you. The quicker we repent, the quicker things have the opportunity to turn around.
  • When people come at you with accusations, go to the mobile court (court of accusations) and deal with it there, even if you did nothing wrong. By repenting, it disarms the situation. Ian has a teaching titled “The Mobile Court” that will help you walk through that process. Again, go to www.sonofthunder.org to get that teaching. Enter the title into the search box and it should show up. Mike Parsons also has a really good teaching on YouTube. CLICK HERE for that link.
  • I also discuss the mobile court in several of my books. You'll find all my materials on Amazon. Simply type in my name under the "books" category. 
  • Don’t expect ministerial services to be free. This includes music, teachings, books, healing sessions, etc. If you’re offering one of these services, set a price worthy of your abilities. If you’re the consumer, think of it as a trade into what that person offers. You’re paying for their time.
  • Don’t share “purchasable” materials with others. If they want it, they should pay for it! This is against copyright laws. So, don’t do it!
  • Learn to enjoy what you do! Quit complaining and see the positive instead of focusing on the negative. Abiding by the phrase from the 1970’s that was plastered all over bumper stickers – “bloom where you are planted” is a good place to start.
  • Add your own…

If this seems a bit harsh, there’s probably a sacred cow (stinking religious thinking) that needs dealt with. Honestly, these are spiritual laws. People who live by them that aren’t Christians generally fare quite well. The Christian community often whines and moans saying “Why are they having such great success and I’m not!” Well, it’s probably because there are spiritual laws not being followed. We have to be willing to see our own faults before we look at the faults of others. Our barometer is registered by what’s going on in our personal lives, our families, and our businesses. I did well in some areas but horribly in others. Once I started to focus on the pieces that were way out of kilter, it was amazing how my overall life began to change for the better.

Had I not looked at the crap in my life, I’d still be in the same place today that I was several years ago. Even though I was a good business person in general, there were things in my personal life that needed attention. I’m still on the journey but as I walk through the tough stuff, I literally graduate to that next level where I get to deal with more stuff! But, with that comes a new level of authority as well as freedom in my life. If I can do it, so can you. This may sound goofy but when hard stuff happens now, I say “Woo hoo! I get a chance to learn something through this!”

Thank you for taking time to listen to my musings on the subject of kingdom business. I hope it provided some insight for you. Feel free to post your questions/comments below or shoot me a message by clicking on the “contact us” button in the right side bar.

Here’s my declaration for you today: May Yahweh, Jeshua, and the Holy Spirit become so real in your life that no circumstance can pull you away from that love. May your whole being resonate with the light, Glory, and Love of the Father!

Blessings,

Del

Posted on

Your Light Body

by Del Hungerford

We continue with looking deeper into our personal light body. What is it? How do you engage with it? How does it help you mature into a Son of God? How is it different than my physical body? We know that we have a spirit, soul, and body. We explore how they fit into the topic of your light body. 

This is the sequel to the “Allness of God” article. In that article, you were introduced to your light body and then we took you into the communion prayer. Here, I dig deeper into some of the truths spoken by Nicolas Acuna in his 3-part video series (Secrets of the House of Light) found on his YouTube channel. Many within NW Ekklesia are paying attention to Nicolas, Fiorella Giordano, Justin Paul Abraham, and others who desire to lead us into how we’re to function as mature Sons of God in this next “age.” No, it’s NOT your standard “run of the mill” Christianity because it requires that we get out of the box we’ve been put in since the time of Constantine.

Here are the most recent interviews we’ve been listening to and discussing. Bookmark them and listen when you have time to take some good notes.

In this article, I’ll focus on Parts 1 from the Secrets of the House of Light series by Nicolas Acuna that's on his YouTube channel. I’ll bring in a couple of pieces from his interview with Justin Abraham, too, because that discussion helps explain what Nicolas doesn’t say in Part 1 of his own series.

Framework of Futurism

Nicolas Acuna presents his topics from the perspective of looking into and functioning from the future. He obviously understands scientific pieces of the creation puzzle that the normal lay person (like me) didn’t focus on in high school (or college). My focus was on anything involving music and forestry... an interesting combination. Hmmm…. All that means is that I get to learn about scientific stuff now. Better late than never, right?!

Nicolas, Fiorella, and Justin look into the future, seeing the possibilities of what lies ahead based on God’s character instead of the negative bent being presented by many church leaders today. I guess they think doom and gloom will “fear” people into being saved? God is good, loving, kind, and wants nothing but for us to BE Christ-like IN the earth, spreading His love, joy, and peace to everything and everyone around us. We can’t do that if we’re angry, traumatized, frustrated, or live with a victim mentality. Therefore, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2), which you’ll see is on Nicolas’ 7 levels of consciousness and communion. You’ll find that chart in the Allness of God article. For easy access, my reworded version is included here (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Nicolas introduces the framework of futurism where we live out of the future, not the past. In his discussion with Justin, he delves into how that works. He states that “when you entrain your consciousness to a higher thought of God, not only does your circumstance change in the present, but your past and future also change.” God did not call us to live out of the present or past. We see in Figure 1 that we “ascend” into higher levels of consciousness and communion with God to “govern” our lives. It’s recommended that you wait to watch Nicolas' interview (posted above) with Justin until AFTER you’ve watched parts 1 and 2 of the Secrets of the House of Light series. As a reminder, here are Nicolas’ 7 levels (with scriptures) of consciousness and communion that were “transformed” into I AM statements in the Allness of God article:

  1. I am incarnated in Christ (John 3:16)
  2. I am crucified in Christ (Galatians 2:20)
  3. I am resurrected in Christ (Romans 6:4-6)
  4. I am seated in Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6)
  5. I am functioning in my identity from the foundations of the world. (Ephesians 1:4)
  6. I am a co-creator in Christ. (Genesis 1:26-28)
  7. I am functioning in, from, and through the Allness, image, and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:26)

Your Light Body

In Part 1 of Nicolas’ teaching, we’re immediately introduced to the spirit body, soul body, and physical body. In Figure 2, I created a diagram that represents what he describes as different pieces within our spirit, soul, and physical body. Our spirit includes the spirit and unique bodies. The soul includes the mind body, ego body, astral body, and etheric body. The Allness (uniqueness) of God, at the highest level of consciousness and communion, releases God's thoughts and will to every level below it. All lower levels are sub steps that lead downward to Jesus, the incarnate body, where we begin our Christ journey. Our light body is upstream in consciousness and upstream in physicality. We are the centerpiece between heaven and earth. The scripture Nicolas uses to describe us as living beings of light is John 8: 12 where Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” When we are infused with the light of life, our light body activates!

Figure 2

Notice in Figure 1 that each level is connected much like conentric circles where there's easy flow from one level to the next. Upward is communion and consciousness in Christ. Downward is where we bring the Allness of God THROUGH us and into the earth realm. This picture shows the "as above, so below" principle. Earth is meant to be a mirror of heaven. 

Throughout Nicolas’ teaching, he speaks of the Merkabah – our light being. The word “Merkabah” broken down is… Mer = Light, Ka = Glory, and Bah = soul. A “Christo-Kaic” structure is our likeness in Christ. Without the “Ka” residing IN Christ (Christo-kaic), it’s a worldly structure. Those who do not function in Christ, like many modern “new age” thinkers who believe it's all about self, they only function in the “earthly glory” which only gets you so far. This is one reason I believe that when those not seated in Christ “astral project,” they need a silver cord to keep them tied to their bodies. When we're connected to the mind of Christ, the thoughts of God, and the Allness of God, there are no limitations.

Nicolas goes into detail about the Merkabah (your light body) by presenting five “Markabian structures.” Some key points are included here:

  • Host the light in our light body. Consciousness increases as light increases. Light takes shape so we can connect the two worlds – as above, so below. Here, we integrate the two realms (heaven and earth). As we grow into the likeness of Christ, we have more interdimensional capacity.
  • The “Light of Life” seeks to organize itself into more creation and eradicate darkness. This is where we clothe ourselves with the imperishable and death is then swallowed up. When we combine the “Light of Life” with the “Breath of Life,” we start becoming a co-creator in Christ.
  • The Light of Life can be transmuted (transform, alter, change) into the Glory of the God by coherence. Coherence is unity, symmetry, and harmony. This is where we bring every thought captive into the order of Christ. From here, it’s transmuted into glory.
  • Our capacity to align increases. We integrate polarities (those things that seem opposite) such as the right and left brain so they come into coherence with the Allness of God. Polarities become the will of God when we transmute the Glory of God. We break dichotomy (separation, opposition, contradiction) and think “wholistically,” the way God does. This is where we see the overall picture.
  • The “Christo-Kaic” emergence. It is the expansion of our consciousness from the individual to the All. It’s multidimensional architecture that we can host in our body where we’re aware of our multi-dimensional body. We see this as the Merkabah light body that I created from Nicolas’ video in Figure 3.

Figure 3

CONSIDER… because we’re in the image and likeness of Christ, we ALSO are a light in the world. Nicolas describes in Part 1 how we do that. It’s through varying levels of maturity into the consciousness and communion of God we mature into the image and likeness of Christ. We can’t do that until we reach the level of being “seated in Christ in heavenly places.”

The Message Bible clearly states how we’re a light in the world in Matthew 5:14. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

We must rise above the level of the crucified Christ and being resurrected in Christ to the level of being seated IN Christ IN heavenly before we truly live in the Allness of God. As Nicolas says in his discussion with Justin Abraham, “If we’re not entrained to a higher level of authority, the fractal that emanates is of lesser quality or lesser authority. It traps us in a less hopeful timeline.” We need get above the place where we’re incarnated in Christ (salvation), the crucifixion (pain, sorrow, anger, etc.), and the resurrection. The problem with the resurrection in Christ piece is that many religious scholars have taught it won’t happen until after we die. If that’s the case, then we can’t move to the next level where we’re seated in Christ in heavenly places until after our physical body leaves the earth. How can that be true if people in the Bible prove otherwise? John shows us in Revelation 4 that’s not the case when he was invited to “come up here.” Enoch and Elijah also demonstrated this "ability" to live out of the revelation coming from heaven. Those are three examples off the top of my head but there are more. Have fun digging through scripture for more examples. 

Nicolas uses the word “fractal” (evolving symmetry, self-similar pattern, repeating pattern) to show what’s eternal. Fractals repeat “after their kind” into infinity. The eternal fractal Nicolas talks about is the “Allness of God” because God has always existed and will continue to exist.

When we engage in fear, frustration, or any of their negative cuddle buddies, we’re functioning at a lower level of consciousness and communion – probably at or below the crucified Christ. When we’re hopeful for the future but can’t seem to believe for the reality of it yet, we’re between the crucified Christ and the resurrected Christ. It’s not until we’re seating IN Christ IN heavenly places where we learn to function as John, Enoch, and Elijah did while they still lived on earth. Justin Abraham calls this the “Enochian way.”

After watching Nicolas’ first video on the Secrets of the House of Light, the video with Justin Abraham begins to make more sense. That video is titled “New Earth Rising, Part 3” It’s between these two videos we begin to understand more about how our light body functions. As Sons of God, we are seated IN Christ IN heavenly places. Yes, that’s repeated many times throughout this article for a reason – to cement it into your being in a higher level of consciousness.

Question? If there’s a seat, what does it look like? We’re told we have thrones in heaven, so it only makes sense that we’re seated on the throne of our life as we’re seated in Christ. From here, we put on the mind of Christ and position ourselves in the thoughts of God. Both the mind of Christ and thoughts of God are at a higher level of consciousness and communion in the Allness of God. We can’t be polarized in the mind of Christ or the thoughts of God. We see things as God sees them and bring the revelation of what we see, hear, sense, and feel into the earth realm and release that reality around us. What’s in the spiritual realm comes into the material realm. This is how Jesus did seemingly impossible things on earth. And, he totally made the Jewish leaders mad, which tells us Jesus’ actions negatively triggered them Hmmm… how is this any different than today? If you want to know who is doing stupid stuff, look at those who are the most angry about the actions and words of others. Moving along…

To help with understanding your light body and how to function as the light being God created you to be, you need to activate your light body and continue growing in maturity and revelation in the mind of Christ, God's thoughts, and the Allness of God, If you want some assistance, I've got you covered!

See the information below where you can read more about the voice-over activations I created to assist you with this journey. I took the meditation Nicolas did in Part 1 of his teaching, dug deeper into what he said, and then created two meditations/activations. Meditation and activation are synonymous with one another because they are meant to activate you from a meditative state of mind. Nicolas does a very short version of a similar meditation not far into his video. I believe it's right after he introduces the second Merkabian structure.. I simply began with what he provides and went from there. The two MP3 voice-over activations I created, are 30-minutes long each. 

Light Body Meditation - $15

What's included? Two separate meditations to the same music titled “Light Body Activation” and “Christ Energy Meditation.” There are two PDF's with the meditations written out and more information. Also incuded is an MP3 of the instrumental music used for the meditations. 

Learn More!

Activation Introduction

In my meditation, you’ll fill and activate your light body with the energy of the Allness of God that’s within the mind of Christ and the thoughts of God. Your light body is your Merkabah – or Christo-Kaic (Christ-energy) structure that resides in your spirit. It’s a consciousness and communion in Christ that’s filled with, and radiates, the light and glory of God as you’re seated in Christ in heavenly places and function in the Allness (likeness and image) of God.

The Star of David (two triangles – one pointed down and the other pointed up) forms the Merkabic structure that energizes your being – spirit, soul, and body. They connect and create five energetic points. In the Allness and thoughts of God, we bring truths of heaven and release them into the earth realm. Visualize your light body (spirit body, soul body, and physical body) residing in this “Merkabian” energetic structure.

In this place, you become 1 Cor. 15:53-54 “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (NIV)

Activate your imagination by visualizing your heart as a glowing ball of light that’s vibrating with energy. It glows with a frequency that you can feel through your entire body. See, feel, and sense the heart increase in light and glory as you marinate in the Perfect love of God.

From this position of Perfect Love, you’ll infuse the light of life, breath of life, and Allness of God into your heart. You’ll then move the light throughout your spirit body, soul body, and physical body. Begin in your heart where you’re seated on the throne of your life in Christ in heavenly places. From this place of rest, you’ll infuse the light of life, then the breath of life, and finally the Allness of God throughout your entire being.

Feel free to follow along with Nicolas as he presents a short version of the meditation in his Part 1 video, or if you prefer a longer, more detailed variation, you can purchase mine and follow along as I lead you through the meditations to original music in the background. 

Conclusion

As we continue to dig deeper into a variety of teachings, the goal is to step beyond our current understanding and be willing to let go of our “pet” religious ideas. If we hold onto things we’ve always been taught or believed about scripture, chances are we’ll miss the very thing God is showing us. Yes, it’s good to take deep dives into the original Greek and Hebrew but none of us lived at the time the Bible was written. We don’t always understand the context of how things were said. As an example, our vernacular has changed drastically in my lifetime alone. In 100 years from now, people will read a sentence that includes “that’s totally tubular” or how about “I’m miffed about that” and have no clue what they mean. How can we, some 2,000 years after Christ died, fully understand the culture, daily life, discussions, and how the people of Jesus' day talked and functioned? We have some writings beyond the Bible from people in that day but it's not enough to truly understand their culture. There's a lot written in scripture but there's also a lot that's impled based on the culture of their day (not ours).

Context is important when reading scripture and documents from cultures we don’t personally know about or understand. Scripture only tells us a small part of what we need to know and understand. Scripture gives us many clues concerning God’s character but like any good Father does, we are set on our own journey to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. It’s a maturing process we must go through as we move from revelation to revelation and maturity to maturity. When bad stuff happens, learn from the circumstance and move onward and upward into a higher level of consciousness and communion as we’re seated IN Christ IN heavenly places.

When it comes to maturing, we can only begin with Jesus' words where he says we'll do greater things than he did. (John 14:12) Since that's the case, why aren't we doing it? What are we missing? Why are so many people sick, sad, frustrated, angry, and/or struggling? This includes Christians! Is it possible we're stuck in stinking religious thinking? Maybe... just maybe... as we learn to function IN our identity IN Christ, we'll rise above earthly circumstances where we can sit in the mind of Christ and the thoughts of God to understand how to faciliate what goes on in the earth from the heavenly perspective. As above... so should the "below" be. But, it can't get to that point until we take our place as Sons of God and function as we were created to do from the beginning of time. 

Happy activating!

Del

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Allness of God

by Del Hungerford and Paulette Rahm

NW Ekklesia is different from many churches in that we enjoy bouncing ideas off one another as we listen to a variety of teachings rather than listening to one preacher/teacher as our main source of information. No one person or organization has the full picture of what God is doing so it requires listening to many voices and pulling out the nuggets and finding out how each nugget fits within the overall puzzle of Kingdom living. Of course, it’s important to compare what we hear to the Word of God, making sure our research lines up with God’s character.

A recent example is when Del and Paulette worked together while listening to a teaching by Nicolas Acuna.
Secrets House of Light PT 1. There are three teachings in the set and can all be found on Nicolas’ YouTube channel – Mystical Futurist. In this article, we’ll discuss our thoughts on the first video (Part 1).

How did this all come about? We began discussing communion, which as Christians, we know is very important. But do we understand the fullness of communion and why it was the last thing Jesus did with his disciples? Years ago, Del heard Ian Clayton teach about communion. She declared some version of that prayer for nearly twelve years, and it changed her life. Why? Because repetition helps cement new patterns into our being one thought at a time. It’s one way that we “renew our minds.”

Figure 1

As the two of us (Del and Paulette) went through Nicolas’ teaching and Ian’s prayer line by line, we received deeper revelation and understanding of truths that were there all along. Ian and Nicolas both talk about our “light being” and how our bodies need to remember who we were at the beginning of time. 

We know that we’re spirit beings, but we also have a soul and physical body. That’s two-thirds of our being that doesn’t remember who we were “at the beginning!” You'll see that "progression" in Figure 1. 

The key is to see that as we mature, we “ascend” into higher levels of consciousness and communion where we not only sit with Christ in heavenly places, but we govern as co-laborers and co-creators with Christ. Nicolas mentions the seven levels of communion from another teaching on an upside-down triangle. We created our own version of that chart in Figure 1. We’ll add to it for the communion prayer activation at the end of this article.

Terminology

Let’s begin with some terms that explain both Ian’s communion prayer and Nicolas’ reference to communion as well. First and foremost, when we take the blood of Jesus and the bread (Christ’s body) in communion, we identify with His DNA. We combine who we are with who He is. As we fully understand that we’re seated in Christ in heavenly place (Ephesians 2:6), we rise above earthly circumstances. Nicolas uses the term “Christo-kaic” in his teaching andsays it is the highest level of communion. Nicolas says that our Christo-kaic light body is the one that grows in the likeness of Christ. A Christo-kaic “structure” is infused with light (the glory) where light and life create shape. This can only be done in the spirit – not the soul or body. We actually have three "bodies" according to Nicolas - spirit body, soul body, and physical body. It's our "spirit body" that becomes the Christo-kaic structure. 

What is coherence? Similar words include – symmetry, harmony, balance, coordination, order, and unity. In a nutshell, our spirit, soul, and body must come together in harmony to coordinate as one unit in perfect symmetry and balance. That can’t happen if the mind is in a different place than the heart. This is why the Word says to renew the mind and put on the mind of Christ. When we resonate with the “Allness” (likeness and image) of God, our entire being (spirit, soul, and body) aligns with that truth. It’s a process that continues through our lives as we move from the born-again experience, where we’re “incarnated” with Christ, up through various levels of maturity in communion and consciousness of who God is and who we are IN Christ.

Incarnated, according to Mirriam-Webster means “to make incarnate: such as (a) to give bodily form and substance to (example: incarnates the devil as a serpent) or (b) to give a concrete or actual form: to actualize.” When Christ came to earth, he was fully man (physical body) and fully God (spirit body). This is how he could just disappear through crowds, do amazing miracles, know about the future, create something out of nothing, etc. When we’re IN Christ, we should be able to do the same things He did. Take a moment to ponder on that truth… Jesus even tells us we’ll do greater things than He did! (John 14:12-14). Communion is the “vehicle” that brings us into coherence with the DNA and Allness of God. Remember that the “born-again” experience is the beginning stage of our spiritual “birth” and from there, we move up to higher levels of communion and consciousness (awareness) where we identify with the crucified Christ.

Nicolas states that the crucified Christ identifies the pain He suffered (level 2 in Figure 1). However, if all we ever do is identify with Christ’s pain, then we never get over the pain in our own lives (both emotionally and physically). We must go higher into communion with greater maturity and understanding of God’s character, which is a deeper level of consciousness and awareness of God’s truths. What does that mean? Consciousness is being in an “awareness” state. Some synonyms that may help explain it include understanding, knowledge, discernment, hyperawareness, and cognizance. We have both unconsciousness and subconsciousness to consider. What’s in our subconsciousness comes from the things we’ve “rehearsed” in our thoughts, words, and actions throughout our lives. When we step into God’s thoughts, we become “God conscious.” That’s the ultimate goal which requires letting go of our personal biases and preconceived ideas. That takes time and practice!

As we continue moving up the levels of communion and consciousness, we must identify with the resurrected Christ (level 3 in Figure 1) as described in Romans 6:4-6. These verses include the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. These are the 1st through 3rd levels on our communion journey. To get to a higher level of consciousness, we must fully understand that our “old self” was crucified with Christ, we’re resurrected with Him, and we live in His glory where we’re free from all types of pain. We are above the trauma and drama of life and put our eyes toward the “things above.” We can’t be a victim in the resurrected Christ because that was taken care of on the cross. This is why resurrection (level 3) is one level higher than the crucifixion (level 2).

Ephesians 2:6 says that we’re seated with Christ in heavenly places, which is the next level of consciousness and communion (level 4). What does that actually mean? Imagine you’re at a huge banquet table with the president or king/queen of a country. That’s a pretty special place! You must be invited and have achieved something to be at that table! In this level, there’s deeper conversation, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and authority that comes with a position. We step into that position as we renew our minds by putting on the mind of Christ. The more we live from that position, the better our communion is at this level of consciousness.

As we’re seated in Christ in heavenly positions, what goes on in the world shouldn’t negatively affect us because we’re learning to deal with negative triggers from a higher position – in heavenly places. This is where the phrase “as above – so below” comes from. It’s from this seated position IN Christ that we rule and reign as Sons of God. We bring the revelation of heaven into the earth and release those truths to all those around us. Our “in Himness” should affect those around us. To the degree it does or doesn’t, depends on how much and often we function at the "seated in Christ" level.

We can go to an even deeper level of consciousness and communion IN Christ that speaks to our identity (level 5). If we’re confused about who we are, we can’t “reside” at level five. At this time in history, there seems to be a major effort by the enemy to confuse people about their identity. If we can get sidetracked from understanding who we were created to be, then we can’t even live at the level of the resurrected Christ because we’re too focused on the cares of this life and the traumas we’ve experienced. To function at level five as spoken of in Ephesians 1:4, we must understand WHO we were created to be at the very beginning of time! However, it requires putting on the mind of Christ in level four so we CAN understand more about our identity as we renew our minds.

Level six is all about our part as “co-creators” in Christ as spoken in Genesis 1:26-28. In the Message Bible, it says, “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature…” OK, if we’re going to “reflect the nature” of something, in this case… God, you’re in His likeness and His image. The next thing God tells man to do is name everything. In Hebraic thinking, when you name something, it’s creating that thing. Therefore, Adam and Eve were co-creators with God, which means that we are, too. The key to living at this level of consciousness and communion is to understand and function IN CHRIST in our identity so we can learn to co-create. But to do that efficiently, we must go to the next level – join our thoughts with God’s thoughts. This is where we think and act like Him.

This is more than putting on the mind of Christ, which Nicolas points out in his teaching. We take the thoughts of God into our light body where we reside and function in glory as we’re seated IN Christ. Sue Beckman, also a member of the NW Ekklesia council, coined this as “We’ve joined God’s business – God and Sons.” We become CEO’s in our light bodies where we function in our personal and specialized identity where we then put our individual creative stamp of facilitating “as above – so below.”  

Nicolas Acuna Teaching

Nicolas presents great information in his teaching that explains communion and how it affects us. I believe he goes more into communion in Part 2 where he discusses mitochondria. It’s important to watch Part 1 before going onto Part 2. We recommend that you open the YouTube transcript so it’s scrolling next to the video. Stop/start the video so you can either copy/paste what’s in the transcript or write it out (by hand). NEWSFLASH! Scientists, teachers, and other academics have noted in various studies that handwriting helps with comprehension. This is one reason it’s good to have a journal.

In the beginning of Part 1, Nicolas presents the seven levels of consciousness and communion starting from the physical body and moving upward to the heavenlies. As mentioned above, we changed some of the wording to make it clearer and made a similar image to Nicolas' in Figure 1. 

We have three bodies: physical body, soul body, and spirit body. The spirit body is our “light” body where we fully reside in the glory of God. To function in that level, we must come into coherence where the heart and brain agree with the thoughts of God and the mind of Christ. Trauma and chaos are abolished in the glory. Nothing negative can exist on that “plane” of consciousness.

We’ve taken the seven points presented by Nicolas from Figure 1 and rephrased them to include I AM statements in Figure 2, which we’ve also added into our new communion prayer. As we declare daily over ourselves, eventually our spirit, soul, and body come into coherence with the thoughts, likeness, and image of God as we reside in the mind of Christ and thoughts of God.

Figure 2

Here are the I AM statements with their scriptures listed in order from bottom (lowest level of consciousness and communion) to the top (highest level of consciousness and communion):

  1. I am incarnated in Christ (John 3:16)
  2. I am crucified in Christ (Galatians 2:20)
  3. I am resurrected in Christ (Romans 6:4-6)
  4. I am seated in Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6)
  5. I am functioning in my identity from the foundations of the world. (Ephesians 1:4)
  6. I am a co-creator in Christ. (Genesis 1:26-28)
  7. I am functioning in, from, and through the Allness (image and likeness) of God. (Genesis 1:26)

A principal scripture for understanding “light” is John 8:12 where it says that Jesus is the light of the world. The light of life (the agent of all consciousness) transmutes (converts, transfigures, changes, etc.) to the glory of the Lord. Our likeness in Christ brings revelation from heaven to earth so “matter” (material things of this world) manifests. We are the connection between heaven to earth as co-creators as we’re seated IN Christ in heavenly places where we function in our identity with the thoughts of God and the mind of Christ.

Understanding the Communion Prayer

Going back to the communion prayer, the transfiguration on the mountain occurred before Jesus was resurrected. We know he already functioned in his light body because he would disappear before people’s eyes and could do things no human we've ever known does. Why do you think that is? Obviously, something about him was different. When you read the account of the transfiguration on the mountain in all four gospels, make special note of HOW he looked. This was a precursor to his light body after the resurrection. When we take communion as the light being we’re supposed to be, we step into greater revelation of who we are IN CHRIST. The more we take communion, the more our entire being begins to resonate with the energetical system of the light body we were before we came to earth. From our light body, we bring the heavenly revelation into the rest of our body (soul body and physical body). 

Obviously, Jesus was all God and all man because he’s one of the few who somehow remembered his calling on life and understood the kingdom of heaven at a greater level better than most of the Jewish leaders. This was evident in his childhood, too. Del does an activation (link is at the end of this article) based on Nicolas' meditation that he does in Part 1 of his three-teaching set. As a reminder, HERE is the link to see all three videos. Del's activation is meant to incorporate the spirit body with the soul body and physical body so they function as one as you're seated IN Christ, have the mind of Christ, and live in God's thoughts. 

We’ll delve deeper into Part 2 of Nicolas’ teaching in another article.  Meanwhile, if you’re reading this on the website, feel free to copy this prayer and begin to say it daily during your meals. If you’ve purchased the activation, you'll have some of this article as a PDF😊

Communion Prayer

Father, today by faith, I lay hold of the record and testimony that I carry in my spirit, soul, and physical body that resides in the likeness and image (Allness) of God. I receive into my body the record of the complete and eternal DNA of God through the body and blood of Christ. Thank you, Jesus, for your willingness to carry the record and bearing the pain and sorrow of the cross for this day. I embrace the seven steps of consciousness and communion:

  1. I am incarnated in Christ (John 3:16)
  2. I am crucified in Christ (Galatians 2:20)
  3. I am resurrected in Christ (Romans 6:4-6)
  4. I am seated in Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6)
  5. I am functioning in my identity from the foundations of the world. (Ephesians 1:4)
  6. I am a co-creator in Christ. (Genesis 1:26-28)
  7. I am functioning in, from, and through the Allness (image and likeness) of God. (Genesis 1:26)

By faith, I receive the provision of the law and testimony of your Word that says, I will live and not die, I walk in divine health, putting on eternal life and immortality as declared in Your Word. (1 Cor. 15:53-54)

I engage the record of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain that’s in the communion I’m taking. (Matt 17:1-2) It changes the reflection of the kingdom that I live in. I speak to my spirit, soul, and physical body, “Hear the voice of God speak light into you. You are a light body!”

I take communion with my light body – my energetical system. I grow my Christ-like (Christo-Kaic) body as it mediates between the seven levels of consciousness and communion. I receive the blessings of the light body that emanates from the order of Melchizedek.

My light body (glory) releases and receives continual revelation of consciousness and communion as I am transformed into the image and likeness of God.

Activation Time!

Del created a voice-over activation to original music so you can engage with this communion prayer daily. When she first heard Ian’s teaching, she recorded herself speaking declarations, prayers, and even Ian Clayton’s communion prayer.

In Del’s words… “I’d turn them on in my truck as I drove to work every day so I could engage in the truths I was speaking over myself. After about two years of doing this daily, I was healed of a 19-year illness. That only came through a process of transforming some stinking thinking where communion was a huge part of it!” The scriptures are not in the voice-over prayer so copy them from this post into your journal. As you begin to receive revelation, write what you see, hear, sense, and feel.

There are two separate activations:

  1. Communion Prayer: The prayer is spoken over original music (MP3 format) where you repeat the prayer after Del. A recording of the instrumental music (without the activation) is included in MP3 format. There’s a PDF copy of this article, too. PRICE: $10
  2. Light Body Activation: In Part 1 of Nicolas’ teaching, he walks the viewer through a meditation to activate the light body. Del created an original song (about 30 minutes long) where she does an in depth meditation voice-over activation to original music. In addition, the music alone with the full PDF of the activation is included. PRICE: $15

The Communion prayer is listed above. Feel free to copy it, screenshot it, or whatever works best for you. The key is to take communion daily. If you want to say the prayer (or some version of it on your own), feel free to do so. If you want some assistance, grab the materials provided by Del.

Happy Practicing!

Del and Paulette

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Is a Workman Truly Worthy of His Hire?

Image by Pixabay

There are several scriptures that relate to the phrase “a workman is worthy of his hire.” To name a few: Luke 10:7, 1 Timothy 5:18, Mathew 10:10, Leviticus 19:13, and Deuteronomy 24:15. CLICK HERE to read those scriptures in Bible Gateway.  Consider looking at each scripture in a variety of translations. Depending on your religious paradigm, the interpretations will vary.

Here’s the issue with our standard belief system concerning people getting paid, specifically to “minister.” For some odd reason, we seem to have it in our minds that since “freely you’ve received – freely give.” This scripture comes from Matthew 10:18. CLICK HERE to read a variety of translations in Bible Hub. I encourage you to read those translations before looking at the definitions below. Once you’ve done that, look at the original Greek in Bible Wheel. CLICK HERE for that information. Here is a synopsis of those definitions.

  • FREELY: δωρεαν dorean {do-reh-an’} without a cause, in vain, for nought, freely, undeservedly
  • RECEIVED: λαμβανω lambano {lam-ban’-o} receive, take, have, catch. To take, to take with the hand, lay hold of, any person or thing in order to use it, to take up a thing to be carried, to take upon one’s self, to take in order to carry away. Without the notion of violence, i,e to remove, take away. To take what is one’s own, to take to one’s self, to make one’s own. To claim, procure, for one’s self. To associate with one’s self as companion, attendant – of that which when taken is not let go, to seize, to lay hold of, apprehend. To take by craft (our catch, used of hunters, fisherman, etc.), to circumvent one by fraud. To take to one’s self, lay hold upon, take possession of, i.e. to appropriate to one’s self. Catch at, reach after, strive to obtain. To take a thing due, to collect, gather (tribute). To take, to admit, receive. To receive what is offered, not to refuse or reject. To receive a person, give him access to one’s self. To regard any one’s power, rank, external circumstances, and on that account to do some injustice or neglect something. To take, to choose, select. To take beginning, to prove anything, to make a trial of, to experience. To receive (what is given), to gain, get, obtain, to get back.
  • GIVE: διδωμι didomi {did’-o-mee} grant, put, show, deliver, make. 1) to give 2) to give something to someone of one’s own accord to give one something, to his advantage. To bestow a gift. To grant, give to one asking, let have. To supply, furnish, necessary things. To give over, deliver. To reach out, extend, present. To give over to one’s care, entrust, commit. Something to be administered. To give or commit to some one something to be religiously observed. To give what is due or obligatory, to pay: wages or reward. To furnish, endue. To give, to cause, profuse, give forth from one’s self. To give, hand out lots. To appoint to an office. To cause to come forth, i.e. as the sea, death and Hell are said to give up the dead who have been engulfed or received by them. To give one to someone as his own. As an object of his saving care. To give one to someone, to follow him as a leader and master. To give one to someone to care for his interests. To give one to someone to whom he already belonged, to return 4) to grant or permit one. To commission.

Let’s take this scripture and reword it a little and see if that changes the meaning. Here’s the original in the NIV: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Now, let’s replace the words freely, receive and give with another translation that might explain the scripture a bit better. “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Undeservedly you have laid hold of; undeservedly deliver.” There is nothing in any of the above definitions that points toward receiving pay for services rendered. There is no hint of that anywhere! On the other hand, when looking at the scriptures in the first paragraph, there is clear evidence that a workman is truly worthy of his hire. Bottom line, when people provide a service, pay them what they’re worth. If you don’t agree, go somewhere else.

With that, we move onto a story. Many reading this know that I’m a musician and create music for the purposes of it being therapeutic. In addition, I create exercises and “practice” opportunities (available on this site) for those on a journey of Christian maturity. In a sense, they are both a form of ministry. The music is more acceptable by the church for “pay” than teachings. In the minds of some, I should be giving out these materials for free. I also get that request (only from Christians) on the Healing Frequencies Music website, especially those who really want a particular album but can’t pay for it. In fact, Christians tend to be the cheapest and want something for nothing. The only rude correspondence to date has come from those who say they are Christians – 100% of the time. What does this say about the Christian community as a whole?

I see some strange attitudes when it comes to Christian conferences as well. Conferences aren’t cheap to host. People fail to realize that renting a building, purchasing supplies, and paying service providers costs money. There’s this paradigm of “God will provide” so you should just let us in for free. I was at a conference where a group of women all wanted a teaching set. They agreed to pool their resources so they could purchase the whole set (as a download) and share it among themselves. In other words, the woman who purchased it would then send a copy of the downloads to the other women so they’d all have their own copy. I watched this play out for a bit while they discussed it and eventually asked a simple question, “Do you think that’s a good trade?” Long story short… after some further discussion, they decided not to go through with it.

When you do a job, you’re providing of form of “ministry” to someone whether it be fixing a vehicle, cutting your hair, giving your money to the teller at the bank for a deposit, etc. That person is doing something for you that you can’t do yourself. So, he/she is ministering to your needs. To understand more of why I say that, consider reading my article about ministry vs. jobs. From what I’m reading in Matthew 10:8, it doesn’t direct any meaning toward providing services for free. There aren’t more scriptures that seem to point to that interpretation either (unless I’m missing one) but there ARE plenty of scriptures that address being paid what you’re worth.

The topic of a workman being worthy of his (or her) wages intermingled with the “freely receive, freely give” concept has messed up some people because we tend to swallow what’s preached at us – hook, line, and sinker. We haven’t been responsible for our own spiritual growth because we allow what pastors teach us as “thus sayeth the Lord.” We seem to have no problem paying a pastor… well…  most of the time. They tend to live on next to nothing and have to get a second job in order to make ends meet while we demand their attention to “fix” issues in our lives that we could often fix ourselves by putting at bit of effort into a good solution. This includes Christian counseling, which I had first-hand experience during marriage counseling. What’s the point if we’re not going to do what’s suggested?

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Here’s the thing…. when you pay for something, you have ownership in/of it. When you don’t pay, you have zero ownership unless the giver chooses to turn over the ownership to you. A gift is a choice by the giver, not the recipient. I was at another conference where one of the speakers kept coming up to the booths saying, “You’ll give me one of those for free?” It was more of a demand than a request. This is all about trading. When you trade, you’re exchanging one thing for another. We can have good trades and bad trades. Much of that depends on our attitude in the midst of the trade. If there’s an expectation that something will be free, that’s a bad trade. I have another teaching on trading so I’ll not go into those details here. CLICK HERE for that post.

The Bible also states that we’ll reap what we sow. If we sow bad trades, we’ll reap bad trades. If we have expectations that things will be free because we believe they should be, then we’re not operating with honor or good character. That’s also a bad trade. A good trade involves putting something of value towards what you desire. When you do it that way, you own it. When it comes with an expectation, that’s of no value because it dishonors the giver. Let the giver make the choice to freely give.

We now get back to the main point at the beginning – a workman is worthy of his hire. That’s plain and simple with little room for misinterpretation. When reading the various versions of the Bible on this subject, there does seem to be uniform agreement. That’s not the case with Matthew 10:8. Hmmm…. I find that interesting but will leave that up for your own pondering as to why that is. The key here is that in order to make a good trade, both the giver and recipient should be on the same page. If you find something overpriced, then don’t moan and whine about it. (There is cheese to go with that whine.) Go find something within your price range that works for you. This includes counseling, receiving services of any kind, attending conferences, etc. If we simply don’t have the funds, then let’s not put it on the giver to lower the price enough that we can have what they’re offering. This might be a growing opportunity for each of us to learn how to exercise our faith muscle and see how God provides.

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Why expect someone to meet our needs and desires when we can use a situation as an opportunity to sit with Jesus and discuss His best plan? When we learn to look at our situations through the eyes of Yahweh, we often have a completely different picture of the process and any solutions that go with it. As we learn to move from our personal expectations and paradigms to those of Yahweh, we grow in character. I encourage all those reading this to get outside old religious boxes of expecting things to be free just because of a perception that it’s “ministry related.” For many of us, what we do replaces a 9 to 5 job. We have training in our fields and offer a high quality product. Why should we be expected to give our product and services for free? That attitude is not honoring the God-given gifts of the giver. Even when something is offered for free, it’s “good form” to sow into that person or ministry. What it does is release more blessings over you! It opens the door for more!

Honestly, it took me some time to work through a bad paradigm concerning this topic. The “freely receive; freely give” Bible verse was used as a weapon to get me to give things to people. This included time, service to a ministry, and physical items or services. It’s a rampant problem in the church, especially for those in the artistic community. Why conference hosts often don’t pay the worship team is beyond me. Those leading worship tend to spend more time on the stage than guest speakers. It seems that we have our priorities a bit messed up concerning two things: 1) the definition of a worker, and 2) our expectation that ministry should be free. I believe that as we honor those who meet our needs and desires (via our pocketbook), we’ll see more breakthrough in our finances.

May you be blessed in your giving and receiving!

Del

© 2019 Del Hungerford