Persevere on the Road Ahead!
Persevere on the road ahead!
You’re almost home now — the finish line is ahead!
Last night, I came across a profound Word (below) from Nate Johnston on Z3news.com: I heard The LORD say, “Pioneers, I AM healing your wounds!” December 6, 2023.
It was like somebody was reading my mail. When you read or hear something that is so God-is-answering-my-deepest-why’s in this…. you know it’s Him.
I don’t know this young minister — but the Prophetic meat of that Word was real!
His post had me thinking…. how we’ve all been wounded. Especially the last few years.
Anyone walking closely to The LORD? In the spirit, the remnant saints, have been both the patient and at times the doctor, the student and at times the teacher, the injured, and at times, the good Samaritan.
Often, we operate in a dual-identity: we give out of Heaven’s heart fresh life, and by evening, we are spent, starving for His feeding of love. We get empty.
The world has emptied and depleted us, and heaven purposed a plan to remedy that: The presence and love of The Holy Spirit.
His presence is the only place anymore where I feel truly alive Loved, known. How ’bout you?
Usually, wounds to the fabric of our souls identity is unintentional. It’s called being human.
Even in The Body of Christ, we are not immune from wounds. In fact, that’s usually where they surface. Underneath.
Every word, event, hurt, grief, sorrow, hope-deferred, painful moment and memory — the avalanche of thoughts that has stuck in our memory bank, we all have a closet full.
The could-have’s, should-have’s. We’ve all been the victim and offender. Sometimes at the same time.
It’s called being human. Living through hard end-time battles, being on the front-lines (in The Kingdom), we’ve had more than our fair share, as the adversary opposes us at every turn.
Everyone Jesus used from Genesis to Revelation experienced it to varying degrees. It’s was all part of Father God’s Plan from the beginning…. knowing all things in advance… from Z to A, (Isaiah 46:10) as He works from the end-back-to-the-beginning.
God is The only builder who frames a foundation by taking it apart first. That’s why His ways are beyond finding out. (Romans 11:33)
Maybe that’s why the internal process of dying to self is so painful at times…. as we feel like a child’s human legos building blocks being disassembled and re-put back together again.
The Master Builder (Hebrews 11:10) is always taking us apart and putting us back together.
None of us enjoy the process — it’s unnatural to our outer frame. But we aren’t the engineer with the blueprint ground plan — He is, for we are His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10).
God is not satisfied with imperfection, He is a flawless designer.
Glory requires perfection, because it is who He is. Our flesh wants to just leave well enough alone.
Re-creation is painful! Ouch! Lord, enough already!
That’s how we feel when The Spirit of God in us, is directing stubborn flesh to die daily. Yet He doesn’t stop. He can’t stop. It’s against His nature to leave a job undone. He always finishes what He starts.
In Aramaic — it is “Heb Kelal” — It is finished! It’s what Jesus said as He finished His earthly assignment — and gave up His soul and Spirit to His Father. In Greek, it is “teteledtei”.
It’s God’s DNA — the triune duality of Him, His mercy, and His fullness, the weight of His glory, that caused Jesus to become fully God and fully man, to make us perfect (Philippians 2).
I don’t know that we will fully comprehend the weight of that until we see Him. We can’t do anything to make the change happen. Just stand still and let Him.
You see, it’s all an inside job! It’s The Spirit’s work! No good work proceeds from our flesh. Jesus, when on earth, without sin, said Only God (His Father above) is good (Mark 10:18). He knew perfection (glory love) had to come down from above. (James 1:17)
Even the Son of God, while on earth, being fully God and fully man, was not immune from sorrow. In fact, He was well-acquainted with it.
Fear and hope ride the seesaw of our soul. We want to get off the swing called “I hurt”… but Jesus pushes us on that swing… a few more times… until we are significantly changed by His glory. It’s a lifelong journey.
As 2023 is nearing the end, if I have offended you, I ask your forgiveness. And likewise, here’s the olive branch back to you. I hold nothing against anyone. Jesus’ Mercy and Grace is our daily bread now.
I’ve discovered that most soul-wounds, in the family of God, are growing wounds [Proverbs 27:6].
Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brother’s, Jesus and His disciples. At his last hours, when His emotions were crushed in a way that is beyond knowing, Jesus had to carry His cross alone. We will also.
So must we. It feels like death. That’s because it is. That’s what the Cross does. If we suffer with Him, so we will reign with Him. If we remain in Him. (2 Timothy 2:12)
May His Peace bring you rest in 2024!
~ Elizabeth.
A Blessed Chanukah, Christmas!
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Below is the December 6, 2023 Word from ©Nate Johnston on Z3news, which stirred my thoughts today.
I heard the Lord say, “Pioneers, I am healing your wounds!”
“I heard The LORD say, “Pioneers, I am healing your wounds”. Time of detoxing and healing”.
“It’s a time when God is doing deep healing and deliverance in those who have been in a three and 7-year pioneering and ground-breaking season. It’s been a season where you entered the battlefield, and it’s felt like you haven’t left, and it’s taken its toll on you.
You feel battle-weary and in need of an internal overhaul.
Many have felt like they have hit a wall in their spirit, their minds, and also physically and now you; unless you are healed and refreshed, you won’t be able to step into anything in 2024.
Pioneering Trauma
Last week, as I was praying, The LORD said to me, “My pioneers need to know when it’s time to stop and rest.” Then he said, “My pioneers need to know when it’s a season to BATTLE and when it’s a season to SETTLE.”
I began to think of our journey and how it’s been a dance between the two, but the last three years have been BATTLE, and pioneers have been severely wounded in the process. The battle has been fierce, and the casualties have been high.
Many pioneers who started fresh-faced and full of life are now depleted and dealing with the long-term effects of continual hard ground and repeated wounding from the dangerous path.
It’s begun to create a trauma mindset in pioneers and pioneer families. It’s begun to affect how you see and respond to life and shut down the faith and ferocity you need that fuels your journey.
But then I heard The LORD say, “Pioneers, I am healing your wounds!” But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares The LORD, ‘because you are called an outcast, Zion, for whom no one cares.’ Jeremiah 30:17
Nomads Finding Rest
Right now, many nomadic pioneers are in a place of feeling spiritually and mentally dizzy.
You have been on the risky “pay whatever price” faith journey, and it’s led you to many strange and obscure seasons that don’t yet make sense. It’s the wild goose chase where things don’t always work or come together, but you know God led you there.
And now, after many years, it feels like you have stepped off the merry-go-round, and your spiritual equilibrium is out. Your head is spinning, and you don’t know how to put your bags down.
All you have ever known is the GO, and now you are in the place of God bringing you into the land, and it’s hard to do. After your head stops spinning, what happens is that you begin to see all the things that need attention now you have stopped.
Your heart needs time to be still. Your soul is crying out for refreshing and rest. Nomadic pioneers, choose to rest. Don’t run into your next thing just yet before you get refreshed.
The Darkroom Season
Pioneers, I know you have been in a darkroom season.
It’s a season where not only does the enemy rage hard at you, but it’s also a season where it feels like the lights are out.
Heaven seems quiet. Dreams are less. And you have no idea where you are going. It was like you were paving a new path, then someone turned the lights off.
Now, you can’t see, and you don’t have any insight into where you are going or what God is saying.
This can easily be diagnosed as a failure season, but isn’t a darkroom where photographs go to be developed?
What is this darkroom is not a dead end but the beginning of a new chapter. A revealing?
But regardless, the darkroom can often multiply the state of woundedness of the pioneer.
The Witchcraft Slime Detox
Pioneers, one of the most critical parts of this process is the healing from witchcraft attacks.
The last three years have been a tough road for those breaking new ground because it’s become even more unpopular.
The religious have slimed you nonstop for being a supposed rebel and heretic.
The Sauls have slimed you for not putting on their armor and wearing their slogan.
The apostolic moguls have kicked you out for now, bowing down to their elitist agenda.
The eunuchs who do nothing have dragged your name through the mud because your yes exposes their disobedience.
The Athaliahs have come after you because you are pure-hearted and without guile.
Jezebel has been after you because you can’t be bought and don’t dance with culture. The secret saboteurs close to you have created campaigns to discredit you and shut doors.
And well, let’s say it: some family and friends think you have lost your marbles, so they have thrown daggers and doubts at you the whole time.
But… you kept pioneering anyway, mighty warrior! Wow, what a feat!
But, let’s be honest, it does take its toll, and right now, you are feeling like a boxer the day after a big fight. You didn’t feel it months ago, but today you do, and The LORD is now DE-SLIMING you and healing your wounds.
He is pouring His oil and wine over you and restoring you to total health.
He is breaking soil ties and strongholds you didn’t even know you had and setting you completely free so you are UNLATCHED, UN-HINGED, and UNLEASHED for tomorrow’s assignment.
Turning Back the Clock
On the 1st of December, I had a dream where I was reliving a painful memory I had forgotten from my childhood, and in the dream, God redeemed it and spoke a new life over it.
When I woke, The LORD said, “I have to go back to launch you forward.” And right now, many are feeling the sudden influx of triggers, and past pain and PTSD come up out of nowhere.
“Didn’t I deal with that?” Many are saying. But this is a deeper clean to create a greater capacity inside you for the days ahead.
There have been some subtly sabotaging mindsets that have been clinging to you from those memories, and you won’t be able to move ahead while still thinking in that way effectively.
Old Triggers & Crisis Response
“But why am I being triggered the way I am? It feels like everything is erupting inside of me?”
Yes, it’s all coming to the surface right now because God is not only healing you of your wounds but also recalibrating your emotions, and mind and retraining you in how you see and respond to things around you.
A battle season will teach you to react in a not spirit-led way. You swing your sword at anything that comes near. You rush to put out every fire you see.
You have been cursed and betrayed by so many people that you begin to see everyone as the enemy. Your heart gets burnt so often that you hide it behind many layers of self-protection.
Essentially, you live in a constant state of fight or flight. The fight-or-flight response refers to the physiological reaction that occurs in the presence of something mentally or physically terrifying.
You have lived in that place long enough, even for decades, and The LORD is healing you from the triggers of the past and the ways they cause you to react now.
It’s survival mode at its finest, and that MUST BREAK BEFORE YOU CROSS OVER!
The Threshold
Many pioneers have been at this threshold for too long.
It’s the place of tension between the new day and the night of the soul.
You have been stuck at 3 am feeling broken and battered and knowing morning is coming but inside of how to get there.
Many have been like Jacob wrestling the angel, and now daybreak has finally come.
But your hip is out. You are walking with a limp, and while your name is changed and your new day before you, you need to heal before you can even make a step.
Not Alone in the Fire
To end this word, I want to share an encounter with Jesus last week that I believe The LORD gave me for the pioneers. I went into a vision of standing in a furnace with Jesus, but it wasn’t hot or scary. It felt like the safest place to be. Then I asked him why I was in there.
He looked at me, smiled, and replied to my question, “You and many are in the refiner’s fire because you have asked for more than most.” “What have I asked for?” I asked, needing to know specifics. “All of me and none of the world.”
Then I broke down. I could feel the fire hitting my heart and soul. I could feel it breaking down the trauma and weariness of being in the battle for so many years without seeing an end. I could feel it tearing down constructs I had built in the wilderness of the last three years, where I believed it was on me.
I could feel the fire hitting the fear and anxiety that had started to build up, causing me to hold back instead of stepping into new frontiers. I could feel the toll of the nomadic years beginning to kindle like a slow burn, but one I didn’t realize needed to go.
I could suddenly feel the blows I had taken from principalities but just ignored them. I could feel the fire burning away of words – at first, and it was a few, then it streamed in like a dirty river of curses and judgements.
As this happened, I began to say, “My life has been a long battle, and I need rest!” then something happened I didn’t expect. Then, very simply and smothered in so much freedom, He said to me,
“What makes you think this life is your own?” Then he started to laugh again hysterically, and I came out of the encounter.
I feel I had this for many of us who are pioneering and have done so for some time. This is a message on The LORD’s heart for us and showing us why we are in this process.
We are in the fire with Jesus.The good kind.The freeing kind. The kind of fire where wounds are healed, hearts are reconnected, and the road gets cleared ahead while you linger there.
Author Nate Johnston.”
~ Elizabeth Cassutto
Rev. Elizabeth Cassutto
Lightbeacon Ministries, Millsboro, Delaware.
A story: when I was feeling quite grim about life and death a couple of years ago, a guy from another country in Europe who was prophetic and a churchgoer, felt to tell me the story of how beautiful it was when his grandmother passed away. Everything was peaceful and she was happy.
I also remember a story about De Gaulle being very concerned about the niceness of his death. He was a praying man and I think the story ends with him “dying well”.
So I left the bar where the guy told me about his grandmother quite perplexed in a way. So much bad dying and tortuous illess during COVID Time. But who says you can’t be like the grandmother in the story? I felt God say to me her whole community and region was blessed with such giftings of beautiful last moments.
Sorry if this sounds quite odd. I felt in prayer to write it here.
Oh my, I’m crying as I read your post, Elizabeth. What an article and so on the mark and needed! The Holy Spirit drew me to it this morning.
This is only one place that jumped out at me, “His presence is the only place anymore where I feel truly alive Loved, known. How ’bout you?” Thank you sis for this truly spoke to me all the way through. Next I will read Nate Johnstons post. Love in our Lord and prayers, Joyce
Your insight as always isso refreshing and revealing. I loved this: Fear and hope ride the seesaw of our soul. We want to get off the swing called “I hurt”… but Jesus pushes us on that swing… a few more times… until we are significantly changed by His glory. It’s a lifelong journey.” Now that is a lot to chew on, my friend. As always, enlightenment comes quickly when you speak.Thanks for all you share. Nate is spot on for this hour. Hugs to you my siser, Sandi
Dear Elizabeth,
I loved to read this word and your precious insight!!
Our hearts, emotions and experiences are in so many ways the same. How could it be different if God has HIS ways and principles of forming and changing his people!
This word says it all and I often wonder what a gift it is to express these spiritual things in such a manner!
What he describes has been a process of not only years but more than four decades, living in differnet places and obscure situations others in our family surely did not understand or may have questioned secretly….
Oh, a book it would need to write all the fiery tests down, we and our four children experienced and still wait with us to see the promised end, now that we have been getting old after starting out young!….
Dezember has begun and the Breakthrough prophesied for this year we did not see so far!!…
Lord, have mercy upon your people………
Elizabeth, I have bought and read the book: „The last Jew of Amsterdam.“ It takes you right into your family and all they went through. So well written. I will give it away for Christmas to a good friend who loves historic reports…
Bless you..
I too had read Nate’s words and it could not have come at a better time to help me understand my wounds. Thank you for sharing your insights on these anointed words. Very reassuring
He has been such a gift to the remnant these last 3 years. Almost every word has been this spot on! Praise the Lord and bless Nate and Christy.